Just look at this magnificent beast in the streets of London!!!! The Sultan’s Elephant!!! The Sultan’s Elephant, you ask? Well…first off, it’s a story by Jules Verne – which I know you’ll enjoy!!!

“The belly of the elephant and the engine room now more closely resembled a
psychiatric hospital. This hampered their progress enormously. Addressing the
sultan, the captain said the protentous word: ‘Ballast’.

As a capable Time traveller, he had understood that the unconscious or
delirious passengers would gradually slow the machine to a stop. The outlandish
vessel depended on practical theory: in short they must divest themselves of the
sleep-walkers.”

I don’t want to give away too much of the story – it will be worth your while! So anyways…yeah…the elephant is the Sultan’s time machine and they’re trying to catch another timetraveller, ‘this little girl’!

 

I don’t know if we can even call these enormous things puppets – but I guess that’s what they are. They were made to comemorate the centenary of Jules Verne’s death by Royal De Luxe, an’ extraordinary’ European street theatre company. On May 4th they were in London and the event lasted for 3 days – for….that’s how long it takes to tell the story!

Maybe I’ve been too enthralled by narratology lately and I just get way too emotional when such a lovely spirit of adventure, fantasy and

imagination is made available for ALL people to enjoy – inclusive art, if you will. I mean…can you imagine this story being told in magnificant LONDON?!!

I don’t know how this passed me by, because I truely would have loved to see this in London! It’s just sooooo beautiful!!! But they’re doing Calais on September 28th and I’ve already been in touch with my favourite travel agent! Let me know if you’re tempted to come along!

Oooh…and look…it’s now been in Belgium according to Dagens Næringsliv! I wonder….they’re too big for Bergen aren’t they?