Don't you hate those mimes on the streets?

Well, I do. I never know what to do when confronted by some white-faced mute, copying my moves.

And the reason we should all feel aggrieved is that we're being short changed. What we deserve is street theatre like this:

The Sultan's Elephant travels through Picadilly Circus Picture: The Sultan's Elephant website

The Sultan's girl travels through time - on a London bus! Picture: The Sultan's Elephant website

The Sultan's girl (5m tall) meets the elephant (12m tall)Picture: The Sultan's Elephant website

Here's the story from IoL:

'Time travelling' elephant performs in London

May 06 2006 at 02:52PM

By Suevon Lee

London - A giant mechanical elephant trudged through a London parade-ground Friday as part of a travelling art exhibit, drawing gasps and cheers from spectators and spraying them with water on a hot, sunny day.

"The Sultan's Elephant," a 12-meter-tall contraption constructed mostly of wood and metal, was created by the Nantes, France-based theatre group Royal de Luxe to tell the story of a forlorn sultan beguiled by visions of a young girl whom he believed was travelling through time.

Desperate to find her, the sultan builds a time-travelling elephant to lead him on a journey to find the girl, who is represented by a giant marionette towering over five meters high.

The animal is a feat of engineering that stands 12 meters tall and weighs 42 tons. Its trunk is operated by 22 pistons and its floppy ears were created from over 70 square meters of leather.

"It's terrifying! "I've never seen such a spectacle," exclaimed Japanese student Mina Yagi, 34, as the elephant approached a fence separating it from the crowd at Horse Guards Parade - a dusty site commonly used for royal ceremonies. But on Friday it took on a circus-like atmosphere.

A loud boom - audible at the nearby residence of Prime Minister Tony Blair as a cabinet reshuffle was under way - signalled the start of the show as characters dressed as the sultan and his entourage mounted the prostrate pachyderm.

The creature drew gasps and cheers from the crowd as it rose to its feet and swung its trunk from side to side, spraying water on people wilting under a sun worthy of midsummer.

Helen Marriage, whose company Artichoke Productions helped bring the three-day exhibit to the streets of London, said: "We wanted to bring something really monumental, and free and accessible to the public here."

Red-uniformed men hauled ropes attached to the limbs of the girl, who arrived from a "crashed spaceship" in nearby Waterloo Place. The girl "meets" the elephant for the first time, and is greeted with an affectionate spray of water. The puppet showed vivid human-like body language.

"She's full of expression - her eyes, her smile. They manage to move her face as well," said Annette Hales-Tiberghien, a London resident. "I'm not surprised (the sultan) is in love with her."

On the Net: The Sultan's Elephant, http://www.thesultanselephant.com - Sapa-AP