In case you hadn’t heard, last Thursday, a spaceship crashed in Waterloo Place in the middle of London.

The next day, out of the spaceship emerged a giant little girl marionette.

The same day a Sultan arrived in London, carried by an enormous mechanical elephant, in pursuit of the girl.

The next day, the little girl took a shower under the elephant’s trunk, got dressed,
and went sightseeing.


And the last day, she played in St. James’s Park,

said goodbye to the elephant,

and she climbed into her spaceship and blasted off.

The story is here, along with some pictures. More pictures here, there and everywhere. Lots of video around too. Some of the pictures come from Nantes and Amiens, where the same thing happened last year.

As perfect street theatre, there’s no question that the images cannot possibly capture what it must have been like to be there. The company is called Royal de luxe, and they staged this last year in honor of the centenary of Jules Verne’s death.

Hat tip to Ronnie del Carmen, whose research I scavenged as I went. Pictures are from thesultanselephant.com, Laughing Squid and Shehani Fernando via the BBC and davebushe at Flickr.