Royal de Luxe

Giant marionette performing The Hidden Rhinoceros at Santiago, Chile.

Royal de Luxe is a French mechanical marionette street theatre company. They were founded in 1979 by Jean Luc Courcoult. Based in Nantes, the company has performed in France, Belgium, England, Germany, Iceland, Chile, Australia and Mexico.

Gigantic puppets

Many of their spectacles use gigantic puppets:

Title	Locations	Remarks
The giant falls from the sky
The giant falls from the sky, last voyage
Return to Africa
The giraffe hunters
The Sultan's Elephant	London, May 2006 Antwerp, July 2006	A story about a time-travelling girl. Often called The Giant Little Girl on Internet-posted videos.
The Hidden Rhinoceros
The Giant of the Titanic	Nantes, June 2009	Photoblog of the show
The Diver and the Giant Little Girl	Antwerp, August 2010
The Mexican Giant, the dog Xolo and the Little Indian Girl	Guadalajara, November 2010 Nantes, may 2011	Photoset of the show in Nantes

Other works

• The true history of France
• Roman photo tournage
• The Peplum (with odorama)
• Revolt of the Mannequins . After Nantes in February 2008 and Antwerp, in July 2008, It was played in Berlin, in November 2008
• They were also said to have made another giant, more lightweight elephant used in Take That Present: The Circus Live, atop which the four bandmembers performed 'The Garden'. This elephant had to be made much more lightweight to be transported between venues.

See also

• La Princesse, a giant mechanical spider designed by the same man who designed the Sultan's Elephant but produced by La Machine - a different performing arts company.

• Les Balayeurs du désert, an accompanying band who perform much of the music for productions run by the Royal de Luxe.

External links

• About Royal De Luxe (note that as of October, 2008, the site had no new updates since 2006)
• La Révolte des Mannequins ("Revolt of the Mannequins") Extensive photoblog of Royal de Luxe's show in Nantes, France, February 2008

• I, for one, welcome the Giant French Rocket Girl and her Elephant of Royal Luxury! has a collection of links about the performance in Nantes
• The Sultan's Elephant in London
• Extracts from an interview with Jean Luc Courcoult by Jean-Christophe Planche
• The Sultan's Elephant in Le Havre on October 2006. Pictures and videos
• Photos and info, news, links etc. from Royal de Luxe events all over the world.
  • Photo Album about Royal de Luxe on Fotopedia