Later musical highlights come via power ballad He Lives In You and the exceptional voice of Thandazile Soni who plays eccentric mandrill Rafiki and Chow Down, the pop-rock number sung by the hunched hyenas. The distinction is in the details: the stage smoke used to create the look of savannah dust being whipped up beneath hooves during the wildebeest stampede the shadow puppetry between scene changes (spoiler) the streams of white-ribbon tears that the grieving lionesses pull from their eyes when their fallen king, Mufasa, is discovered the movements of the dancers adorned with tropical leaves and doing a very convincing and amusing job as the jungle vegetation Timon and Pumbaa lounge among. The level of skill displayed by the actors and puppeteers is sky-high (image by Catherine Ashmore) A group of dancers leap into attitude (image by Johan Persson) The choreography is another of the strongest elements and used to great effect to convey the movement and mannerisms of different species the dancers bringing life to the gazelle contingent by continually leaping into attitude across the stage, a ballerina en pointe tiptoeing delicately past within a cage structure to portray, in the abstract, the giant ants modelled on it. The level of expertise in the actors’ operation of their animals is sky-high and hugely impressive, whether they’re stalking around giraffe-like on stilts, wheeling a herd along or rotating buzzards on poles up above. The music (by South African composer Lebo M) and the mechanics alone are enough to carry the show, which sticks closely to the original dialogue, with the odd Somerset-based gag now chucked in courtesy of Mufasa’s avian advisor Zazu. You could say The Lion King peaks early with this epic opener, invariably received with rapturous applause, but there’s plenty else to keep you rooted. Add in the inherent sense of joy and hope of its Zulu chant – key to the emotive power – and pretty much to-scale elephants, rhinos and all manner of other puppet mammals marching through the auditorium aisles at Bristol Hippodrome and you’ve quite the tear-jerker. There’s something about Elton John’s choice chord arrangements in Circle of Life that makes us well up before the chorus is even close to kicking off. It’s seven years since the smash-hit stage production graced the city and this autumn it’s back with marvellous music, movement and mechanics and a superb cast including a Bristol-trained actor playing the show’s sneaky usurper.
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