Archived: An Elephant In The Garden

Written by Michael Morpurgo
Adapted & Directed by Simon Reade
Performed by Alison Reid

From multi award-winning writer Michael Morpurgo and the creators of Private Peaceful, An Elephant in the Garden returns to the stage in Bristol. This deeply imaginative, gentle giant of a production transports us to the end of the Second World War, celebrating love in the face of hate.

1945. Dresden, Germany. Lizzie, her mother and an elephant from the zoo flee the Allied fire-bombing at the end of the Second World War.

Escaping the Allies’ advance from the West and the Russian armies from the East, this extraordinary trio of refugees meets an RAF officer who has bailed out of his aeroplane, a homeless school choir on the run from the Nazis and the American tanks appearing over the horizon.

This is Lizzie’s story, but Marlene, the elephant, is the heroine. Plodding, obdurate, opportunistic, load-bearing, indestructible, cheering – Marlene embodies the stubbornness of the human will and how it will do everything to survive.