Falling in Love with The Sultan's Elephant
In this exclusive piece for After Nyne, our Editor Claire Meadows celebrates a magical moment in London's history.
I hadn't meant to see it at all. It wasn't by design that I rounded a corner just off Trafalgar Square and saw it. But I give thanks that I did. Because it changed my life a little bit.
The creation of French theatre company Royal de Luxe, and rolled out in London as part of a European tour, The Sultan's Elephant was performed over four magical days in May 2006. Taking the entire scope of Central London as it's canvas, the show told the story of a sultan, who travelled through time on the back of a stunning mechanical elephant.
This magnificent beast was designed by François Delarozière. Using a mixture of hydraulics and motors, it was operated by 22 'manipulateurs'. It sounds cumbersome. It really wasn't. From the first moment I saw him rounding that corner in Trafalgar Square, my breath caught in my throat, and I knew I would have followed him anywhere.
And I did. For two days - stopping to sleep and eat - we followed his trail around the capital, culminating in a 'victory' parade down Piccadilly which was so crammed with people you couldn't move.
Smiling people. Happy people. He may have been everyone's elephant. But in those moments, he felt like our very own elephant.
For this lumbering creature, travelling through time, seemed to be emitting rays of pure joy through his great trunk. For jaded Londoners, so used to keeping our heads down and tearing from one place to another at tremendous speed and woe betide you getting in the way, this was a chance to actually appreciate our city's great potential.
That lovely elephant, and his girl companion - who we saw in repose in a deck chair in St James's Park (not a normal deck chair - she was huge) - made us all feel like tourists. In a very good way.
I had been an adoptive Londoner since 2001 - having moved from the north of England with my husband to be to seek my fortune. The Sultan's Elephant performance made me realise that no other city could own my soul in the way London did.
That performance, the potential, the energy, the love that manifested over those four days, made me a born-again Londoner. I live in the country now, but every single day a piece of me cries out for the capital. And it's a part of me that won't stay silent for long.
The event was the biggest piece of free theatre ever staged in London. A million people came to see it over those four days. For many, the Olympics may have changed their lives. For me, it was the Sultan's Elephant.
And what became of my beautiful elephant? The most horrifying thing for me was finding out that he was destroyed. According to Helen Marriage of Artichoke, the company that produced the London performance,
"Royal de Luxe were so fed up with being invited all over the world to perform The Sultan's Elephant, they just destroyed it."
What a tragic end for such a life-changing creature. I live in hope that, one day, I'll see him resurrected, and he will reign over our lives, and imaginations again.
Claire Meadows is Editor in Chief of After Nyne Magazine and author of Blood Season, published by Urbane Publications.
