The Lion King

I’m always a little apprehensive when I am invited to review a show that happens to be a personal favourite of my own.  Will they follow the original faithfully or will they attempt to make it their own?  Happily, I can report Castle Newnham School managed to do both – and with equal aplomb.

We were met in the foyer by Luke Skeel; (clearly a very talented teacher as he appears to have turned his hands to many jobs for this production; but more on that later) and escorted to our reserved front row seats.  The show was performed in the round with three raised stage areas, in the centre of the hall and at rear of both ends of the room.  The hall was full of proud parents, grandparents and teachers; and you could feel the excitement and expectation in the air.

Rafiki (Raven Togara) started the show with the opening lines of “The Circle of life” and summoned all the animals to the presentation of the new Lion King.  It was at this point I knew I could sit back and relax; I was in safe hands and boy was I in for a treat.  The ensemble managed to “catch” the poetry of movement for every animal; from the stalking Leopards to the imaginative use of poles for the majestic giraffes.  Brilliant!

It was particularly inspired to play the whole thing as gender neural and once one got used to the girls playing boys parts, we were soon into following the action. This was a mixed ability cast, quite rightly drawn from all corners of the school with an age range of 8 - 13   and there was some serious potential talent on display.  I particularly enjoyed seeing a range of ages playing all of the parts giving a feeling of chronology as the show moved on.

As I mentioned Raven as Rafiki opened the show a capella and beautifully done it was too. Wonderful voice! Ella Wood and Sophie Norsworthy managed to capture the carefree nature of both young Simba and young Nala; and they were beautifully matched by the comic timing of Zazu (Santiago Parra Whitehead) who even managed to get a couple of lines from Adele’s “Hello” into his performance.  With that level of ‘cheeky chappie’ timing and natural stage presence I shall expect to see more of him in the years to come!

Strong performances from Alistair Porteous as the doomed King Mufasa and Abbi Hamer as Sarabi, Simba’s mother gave the show a good solid base. And not to forget Kate Dillingham who did a brave job of stepping into the part of Nala’s mother Sarafani.

Holly Openshaw gave us a super performance as the evil Scar. You know you nailed the part of the ‘baddie’ when, as in this case, the audience give you a light-hearted boo when you take your bow. Very well done.

Our Hyenas, Banzai (Sam Tebbutt), Shenzi (Lucy Bichener) and Ed (William Hulatt-Gore) gave us a mixture of enthusiastic, ditzy, evil snarling and some light-hearted humour.

It was however Tilly Macinnes as Timon the Meerkat and Lizzie Lowe as Pumba the Warthog which were arguably the most entertaining scenes, especially with Tilly Macinnes’ deadpan delivery.

This production was well thought out on a choreographic level and the continual entrances and exits of the ensemble kept the action flowing along at a brisk pace.  I particularly liked the change of young Simba to grown up Simba during “Hakuna Matata.”  I would assume that Mr Skeel’s background would be in that field, so well thought out were the various scenes.

The costume department were definitely the stars of the show with the amount of time and hard work that had gone into the design and making of so many excellent costumes and animal masks. Debbie Taylor, Ali Boston, Louise Haddon, Sheridan Carlile and that man again Luke Skeel are to be congratulated, along with the various children who actually made them in class on creating such a variety of colour and spectacle.  On an artistic level alone this was worth the entrance.

If I had to be hyper critical some of the diction was lost as projection is still something this age group is learning, with some doing better than others and occasionally some of the mics appeared not to be fully working, a bane of most societies! However, I did sometimes think even a professional may have struggled to be heard over the sound track; it was in my opinion a little too loud at times sometimes to the detriment of the young actors.  But as I said this is nit-picking and hardly detracted from anyone’s enjoyment of a very well planned and executed show.

So what a wonderfully enthusiast evening I have just spent at Castle Newnham School, putting on such a worthy production and we welcome them to the NODA fold, I definitely look forward to seeing your future productions.  If this is the level of creativity from where you start; Hakuna Matata – you’ve got no worries. 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.