Disney 'The Jungle Book' Kids

Jungle sounds filled the air, and smoke gave the steamy, humid atmosphere of the Indian jungle as the audience entered, giving us time to absorb the simple set of palm trees and green drapery. Our expectations were heightened by the deafening roar of a giant cat that signaled the start of the performance – Shere Khan making his presence felt long before his appearance. The children in the audience squealed with delight.

This is a version of the story written especially for performance by children. It offers plenty of opportunity for music – singing and dancing, and lots of spectacular costumes. The professional team and their helpers behind this production spared no effort or expense in drilling the large cast and dressing them in an array of dazzling outfits.

The opening scene showed modern day schoolchildren reading the tale in books. Two teachers, in mortarboards and gowns, shepherded them into revealing one of their number as 'Mowgli' and as he took his place in the jungle we were treated to a parade of the most magnificent animals – birds, impalas, warthog, zebras, wolf cubs, part hand-props, part costume, part puppet, and even part circus in the case of the stilt-walking giraffes. The youngsters demonstrated skill in manoeuvering their sometimes-cumbersome outfits through the choreography without collision.

Baloo and Bagheera both moved in character – Baloo, all bounce and energy, and Bagheera in a slow cat-like prowl. Their diction and voice projection were both good and their costumes apt without being, in either case, an obvious animal suit – Baloo in a turned baseball cap of fur and Bagheera with her tail hanging down from a long head wrap.

Shere Khan was terrifying, bounding across the stage in a threatening, shoulders-back posture, which he maintained throughout, and with a suitably deep and intimidating voice and roar. In his song, later in Act Two, he showed an admirable skill in movement with his sharp isolations. Kaa, taking the form of a long Chinese dragon of seven young movers, was impressive in the UV scene. Her voice echoed the sibilance we have come to expect and she operated the mouth to good comic effect as she hypnotized young Mowgli.

What a wonderfully creative way of dressing the Elephants! – grey boiler suits and most imaginative trunks worn around their necks and operated by hand-held sticks. It was a hilarious scene as they demonstrated their individual characters and kept crashing into each other. Colonel Hathi had quite a job keeping them under control much to our delight. 

Shanti and her Sister, a pretty pair from the Man Village, had a brief dialogue, giving the Ensemble time to effect a quick change from the Bees of Bare Necessities to their reappearance wearing Monkey outfits. It was so, so entertaining to see King Louie jump up to stand in his throne – of course a monkey wouldn’t sit on it and the Monkeys clambered over the set, and through the auditorium with boundless energy, clearly enjoying themselves yelping and hooting.

We were treated to yet another massive display of costumes as the starkly black and white Vultures and vibrantly coloured Parrots were joined onstage by an array of everything that had gone before and, as the stage filled with the entire company for the finale, the audience couldn’t fail to appreciate the effort of the wardrobe department in dressing over 30 young people in so many beautiful outfits. That the cast members were able to keep up with all their changes and move so confidently in whatever they were wearing is testament to their hours of rehearsal, and their obvious learning of stagecraft skills and teamwork will help their progression into the older age groups of Kidz R Us and, indeed, will be transferable to life skills in general.

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