The Sultan's Elephant

Show by the Royal de Luxe theatre company

The Sultan's Elephant was a show created by the Royal de Luxe theatre company, involving a huge moving mechanical elephant, a giant marionette of a girl and other associated public art installations. In French it was called La visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps (literally, "Visit from the Sultan of the Indies on His Time Travelling Elephant"). The show was commissioned to commemorate the centenary of Jules Verne's death, by the two French cities of Nantes and Amiens, funded by a special grant from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The show was performed at various locations around the world between 2005 and 2006.

The elephant was designed by François Delarozière. It was made mostly of wood, and was operated by 22 'manipulateurs' using a mixture of hydraulics and motors. It weighed 42 tons, as much as seven African elephants. <blockquote>[With] hundreds of moving parts and scores of pumping pistons (22 in the trunk alone), the elephant appealed to the same part of the British psyche that admires Heath Robinson contraptions and reveres eccentric inventors. More than 56 square metres of reclaimed poplar was combined with steel ribs to create the elephant's sturdy skeleton. The attention to detail was extraordinary, from the flapping leather ears and deep wrinkles around the eyes to the puffs of dust sent up by its plodding feet, and the snaking, reticulated trunk. A non exact replica, Le Grand Eléphant (The Great Elephant) was built in Nantes (France) in 2007, as part of the Machines of the Isle of Nantes permanent exhibition. It is 20 feet tall.

The show was first performed in the French cities of Amiens, from 16 to 19 June 2005 and Nantes, from 19 to 22 May 2005.

The Sultan's Elephant show was performed in London from 4 to 7 May 2006. The show started with a rocket "crashing" in Waterloo Place on Thursday May 4, smashing up the tarmac, with smoke coming out from the bottom. On Friday the elephant arrived along with the Sultan. An oversize marionette emerged from the rocket: this was the girl from the Sultan's dreams. The girl met the elephant. On the Friday evening the elephant wandered around St James's, while the girl went on a journey around London on an opentop AEC Routemaster bus. On the Saturday the elephant walked to Trafalgar Square, where it rested during lunchtime. Then the girl marionette was lifted by a crane onto the elephant's trunk and was carried in a Grand Parade back to Horseguards Parade while the Sultan appeared with a troop of dancers on top of the elephant. The girl had a needle and thread, and the things she sewed included a series of cars that were "sewn" to the tarmac. It was brought to England by the production company Artichoke, which was also responsible for bringing the giant mechanical spider La Princesse to Liverpool in September 2008.

The Sultan's Elephant show was performed in Antwerp, Belgium, 7–9 July 2006. Besides the elephant, the rocket and the small giant, there was also a carousel with fantasy vehicles.

Performed in the French cities of Calais 28 September–1 October 2006 and Le Havre 26–29 October 2006.

The giant girl performed alone, without the elephant, in Santiago, Chile 25–28 January 2007 and in Reykjavík, Iceland, from 9–12 May 2007.