An Elephant in the Garden

An Elephant in the Garden is Simon Reades new adaptation of Michael Morpurgos best-selling childrens 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 Lizzies 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.