The intestinal gas could be caught and stored for subsequent use in gas lamps. Less flatulent individuals could use the cavity to transport legs of roast mutton, flasks of hot, sweet tea, first-aid kits, or all of the above. By simply closing our eyes and holding antique Victorian objects such as a ticket to the Victoria and Albert museum, some Pears soap, and a video of Scrooged starring Bill Murray, we were able to channel the Victorian era into our minds. What we discovered has blown apart all pre-conceived preconceptions of the 19th century. For example:In the 1890s the streets of London really were paved with gold.

The police force was invented to patrol them and prevent people from peeling off the gold, hence their nickname “Peelers”. All three of us got consumption just to see what it felt like; rehearsals were conducted in thick fog and one of us (we’re not saying who) worked as a child prostitute in Whitechapel. Little insight was gleaned from any of these methods, though we did get an audition for Oliver!To understand creepy, foggy, Victorian London with all its death and cabbage, our director introduced us to a theatrical process known as “imagino-inbestigayshoon” (Spanish for “imagino-investigation”). David Sant ­ a Spanish clown who speaks no English ­ thought he was to direct a documentary about elephants with red noses driving tiny cars. He still does.
Attempts to contact the cast of the film proved more fruitless. James [Bachman] wrote to Anthony Hopkins to ask if he could borrow the beard he wore as Treves. (Unfortunately he was using it for his new film My Left Beard.) Barunka [O'Shaughnessy] went through John Hurt’s bin for inspiration, but found only some squeezed lemons and a copy of The Stage.

Lucy [Montgomery] helped Michael Elphick out of a bath at a party. He was grateful, but unconscious.Creating a historically accurate history piece like The Elephant Woman required extraordinary depth of research. Many fascinating books have been written on the subject of Merrick and Treves’ relationship, but, as was the case with our last show, The Wicker Woman, we chose instead to watch the film and change the name a bit. Thus came about our theatre homage to David Lynch’s 1980 film The Elephant Man, starring Anthony Hopkins as Treves, John Hurt as Merrick and Michael Elphick as a bloke.Sadly, David Lynch was unavailable to direct so we hired a man with a similar but different name. It seems a hideous, wild-eyed crone had come up to him and muttered some words that struck the fear of God into his heart: “You haven’t got long to live.” And then she disappeared. And that’s a true story.’David Benson’s Haunted Stage’: Assembly Rooms (0131 226 2428), Fri to 30 Aug. Suffering from bonal deformities of the osteoparentheses, John Merrick was paraded as a freak at circus sideshows before settling at the London Hospital under the care of Dr Professor Lord Sir Frederick Lord Treves.