The Bare Necessities

The first play I remember is 'The Jungle Book'. I must have been very small because more than anything concrete – out of the production, all I can see now is the set, a huge metal jungle gym with what looked like railroad tracks on top – what I remember is the emotions surrounding it, awe, fear and feeling very, very tiny in the face of that soaring metal contraption. Since then I have seen probably hundreds of plays, some of them pretty bloody brilliant, but none has made as lasting an imprint on my subconscious as that mid-80s production of 'The Jungle Book'.

Granted, I was at a stage to create a formative memory which would predispose my lifelong enchantment with Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. But I am not the first to be captivated, nor will I be the last.

'The Jungle Book' and its follow-up, 'The Second Jungle Book', published in 1894 and 1895, are actually collections of short stories, several of which focus on Mowgli at various stages of his life. Other stories in the collections include 'Rikki-tikki-tavi', about a heroic mongoose, and 'How Fear Came', the predecessor to the Just-So Stories. And still there is a cultural desire for more Mowgli. In 1994, Pamela Jekel released 'The Third Jungle Book', a series of Mowgli stories which are widely considered to be an accurate pastiche of Kipling's descriptive writing style, and in 2001 a short novel, 'Hunting Mowgli' by Maxim Antinori, was released.

It's not hard to see why Mowgli continues to inspire the imagination. There is something intrinsically appealing about Rudyard Kipling's stories: the wild jungle setting and brushes with the dangerous tiger, Shere Khan, awaken primal instincts and the call to nature, but the very colonial ideals imposed on Kipling's jungle, including the formal English dialogue, a familiar social structure and the feral child's impossibly good manners, make us feel safe, even though our current post-colonial view of the world dictates that this kind of imposition is unnecessary and even harmful. In fact, in Indian universities Kipling is taught not in literature classes but in history, as an illustration of the prevailing imperialist thought of the late 19th century.

But try telling that to generations of delighted children who fall asleep to their parents reading about the thrilling exploits of a kid who's pretty much just like them even if he does live with wolves, or who fall in love with Disney's charming animated bastardisation with its pastel palette and catchy tunes. Sure, it's probably politically incorrect. But one of the things that art can do is turn something foreign into something familiar. In the same way, the metal set from that early play may have been big and imposing, but ultimately it was a big play-toy, and turned a hostile environment into something accessible. Most people don't need art to be difficult and avant-garde all the time and for them, 'The Jungle Book' is a good compromise. It's fun.

Which is why I nearly tripped over myself in the street when I saw the poster for the new production of 'The Jungle Book'. I have no illusions that it will be incredibly meaningful or thought provoking, but all twisted up with the story of Mowgli is a hope that it will again inspire something of the pleasure that it gave me when I was very small.