Elephant in the Garden

An Elephant in the Garden is Simon Reade s new adaptation of Michael Morpurgo s best-selling children s novel.1945. Dresden, Germany. Lizzie, her mother and an elephant from the zoo, flee the Allied fire-bombing in the end-game of the Second World War.Escaping the Allies advance from the West and also the advancing Russian armies from the East this extraordinary trio of refugees meet: a downed RAF officer, cowering in a barn; a homeless school choir on the run and their Countess saviour, harbouring them from the Nazis; and the mechanised American cavalry, appearing over the horizon.It is Lizzie s story but Marlene, the elephant, is the heroine. Plodding, obdurate, opportunistic, loadbearing, indestructible, cheering Marlene embodies the stubbornness of the human will and how it will do everything to survive.