The Lion King @ The Edinburgh Playhouse
Being brave doesn't mean you go looking for trouble.
The Lion King is a masterpiece of stage craft and design. The jungle comes alive from the very first moments – when puppeteers with perfectionist prowess manoeuvre rhinos, elephants and gazelles through the audience onto the stage where giraffes operate on stilts to dazzle from on high, and a proud leopard moves her body with unparalleled wizardry.
The spectacle is undeniable, but Hollywood has taught us to be wary of content that seduces merely the senses... and so what of the Lion King? Does it offer more than meets the eye?
This fabled coming of age story of not running away from problems but facing your destiny, a retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet through drama, song and dance, is almost as stunning on stage today as it was thrilling in the cinema 20 years ago. It incorporates the unmissable favourites I Just Can't Wait to be King, Circle of Life and the ever-memorable Hakuna Matata, interwoven with new content such as the Rocky Horror-esque Chow Down. A particularly worthy addition is the villainous Scar attempting to seduce the innocent Nala for his mate.
Much of the cast recapture the tone of the movie, with show stopping performances from Stephen Carlile as Scar and John Hasler as Timon, but despite some heartwarming flashes of sentimentality and amusing quips the dialogue was quite flat. A main point of irritation was the contrived conversion of the comical Zazu into a Scottish, 500-Miles-singing caricature which, despite eliciting a cheap laugh, came across desperately cold.