The Jungle Book at The Lowry: A Playful Take on Kipling’s Classic
| 4th May 2018
A brand new adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic is delighting families at the Lowry this week.
The show tells the story of Mowgli, the baby who was rescued from the dangers of the jungle and raised by a pack of wolves, and how he grows into a young man who has to find his place among the animals.
The script, by Olivier Award Winner Jessica Swale, is full of humour and, while following Kipling’s original narrative, hints at more current discussions about multi-shaped families, parenthood, feminism and difference.
No “Bare Necessities” here: the original songs by Joe Stilgoe, and Peter McKintosh’s ingenious designs, create a universe very different from Disney’s famous film. The set suggests rather than imitates the jungle: a multitude of green-lit hanging ladders in the background look like a forest of vines, while the actors climb on a construction of intertwined ladders and planks evoking a maze of branches and lianas.
Keziah Joseph as ‘Mowgli’. Photo Manuel Harlan
The audience is soon introduced to the main characters: Keziah Joseph is very touching as Mowgli, credible as a little boy with a fiery voice. Deborah Oyelade as Bagheera is all feline smoothness as soon as she takes a step, and Dyfrig Morris is extraordinary as Baloo, funny and tender like a clumsy single dad with too much love to give.
The biggest challenge for a stage adaptation of The Jungle Book rests in how to represent the animals. Musicals like The Lion King have been extremely successful at this, bringing puppets to life by making the human body part of the shape of the animal, to the point that the audience only sees the beast and forgets the actor. It is clear that The Jungle Book here aims at a similar result at times: a puppeteer flies a bird around the stage, another carries a buffalo mask, three of them move the snake’s tail. But they do not blend into the set, so the audience cannot help but notice them more than the animal they are trying to impersonate.
Keziah Joseph ‘Mowgli’ and the Company. Photo Manuel Harlan
The choices of costumes for the animals are not always rewarding. While Bagheera’s R’n’B-styled sleek black velvet suit and Baloo’s furry dungarees fit both characters very well, Shere Khan the tiger, dressed up like an evil Elvis in a black leather jacket and trousers with glittery orange stripes, has gone too far away from any feline attributes. Using crutches as forelegs for the wolves would be a good idea if they had somehow been disguised, but as it is they just look like people with grey wigs on crutches.
The cast embody the idiosyncrasies of each animal well, but some design choices fail to bring in all the exoticism and magic that is normally expected from the Jungle Book – and this is especially relevant for a younger audience.
Overall, this playful take on the tales of Mowgli the man-cub explores the values of diversity, difference and belonging with refreshing modernity, and the cast carry the show with enthusiasm, making up for the design’s general lack of exoticism.
The Jungle Book is at the Lowry until Sunday 6 May, more information and tickets here.