All the World's A Stage

CANARY WHARF: While I watch six tri-hulled, super sleek, racing yachts parade through the dock outside my window and along into the Thames on their way to a race, I can’t help but remember what Peter Ackroyd said about London’s enduring sense of theatre. From bear baiting to tales of indecisive mummy’s boys to the present day it has been, like the tramps in Covent Garden, a symbol of the city.

Since I’ve been here I’ve seen Willy in the Thames, a historic boat race and the aforementioned yachts powering past my office window. But when, over the weekend, the world renowned Royal de Luxe theatre turned central London into a mystical fairytale playground it was something else.

For three days most of the important (and usually fantastically busy) streets around Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square were blocked off for the procession of a 40ft high wooden elephant puppet and its 20ft high friend. Part of a show called The Sultan’s Elephant, the astonishing pacaderm was actually a time machine that had delivered the sultan to contemporary London. However the story was only background detail. The real story was simply that the elephant and the girl just were. Trafalgar Square was packed with slack jawed tourists and city workers, falling complete under the fantastical spell.

It was amazing watching the puppeteers rushing around like tiny minions make the elephant walk, moving its head from side to side, drenching onlookers with the steady stream of water coming from its trunk. Later, almost by accident, we found the elephant parading up near Piccadilly Circus where it was being serandaded by a band on the bank of a truck and complete with a team of dancers atop the elephant's back. It's face was incredibly detailed and, for at the least the afternoon we were there, it did seem like fantastical place where elephant time machines strolled the streets.

On Sunday I went up to Highbury to watch the Gunners farewell their legendary stadium. Expecting a glimpse into the famous Northern Stand from the street, a glimpse so familiar from so many Premiership games where you can see beyond the corner post and out into the terraced streets, I was suprised to find the streets awash with Arsenal fans eager to say goodbye to their team. I spent the first half in a pub, packed shoulder to shoulder with Arsenal fans and then, after going outside to find a cash point and failing to get inside, I wandered around trying to find another pub. But all of them were full and I ended up in the street with several hundred other fans watching the game through the Northern Stand fans reactions.

After the game we wandered the streets of Highbury, listening to the singing, standing on the crushed beer cans littering the gutters, and sidestepping out of the way of endless phalanxes of police. To paraphrase the greatest of London dramatists, all of London is indeed a stage.

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