Review: An Elephant in the Garden at Newbury Corn Exchange

Written by Milo Davison on .

Alison Reid in An Elephant in the GardenAlison Reid in An Elephant in the GardenA group of children from St Katharine’s School watched An Elephant in the Garden, a play based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, to support their studies into the World Wars. Milo Davison (10) reports.

On Friday I went to see An Elephant in the Garden by Michael Morpurgo at the Corn Exchange in Newbury. We have been reading Michael Morpurgo at school and studying the First and Second World Wars.

I thought it was excellent because it was all done by one person. That person was acting it out like she was reading it to us. It was all done so well.

It had really good scenes in it my favourite scene was when Lizzie met Peter in the hay. Alison Reid (the actor who did it) also had to do all the right accents and had to do the right thing when the right sound effect came up.

There were some parts that were not like the book. For instance they missed out main character, Karli, but i still think the woman did quite well to fit it in an hour.

The story is about a lady remembering her life. She and her family were at her uncle's house and were having an argument about whether Hitler was good or bad. And they thought that Hitler was going to start a war.

When he did the father went off to war first to France then to Russia.

The mother decided to get a job in the zoo. Where they live, Dresden, which was one of the only cities in Germany which hadn't been bombed. If it was all the zoo animals would have to be shot. On Lizzie's birthday the air raid sirens went off and the mother took a baby elephant with them so with thousands of other refugees they all went off but then suddenly the mother went off in a complete other direction!

After hours of walking they eventually arrived at the uncle's house. There was no one there. They decided to put the elephant in the barn but when they got in there a British pilot was asleep on the hay. The mother held the man hostage eventually they made friends but the German soldiers arrived! So the man (Peter) had to pretend that he was Lizzie's brother.

After that they got away with it Lizzie found out that she loved Peter. Peter had to lead them to the Americans, so Peter lead them on with his compass. They carried on for a week until Lizzie fell ill. They sought out refuge and found a house.

When they came in Lizzie got some rest and became better. When she went out in the house she took Peter's compass. But a man who helped own the house took the compass and found it was British and he reported them to the police so they had to leave.

When they were about to go they had to take a bunch of choir children with them. After about another week they found the Americans and the Americans put them in a camp. When they got out Peter and Lizzie got married. So it all ended in a happy ending.