Date: 25 October 1999
Note: The cast has changed since the writing of this review. For current cast details, please see The Lion King listing entry. If you have seen the current cast and would like to share your views please go to the user reviews section.
If Florenz Ziegfeld teamed up with PT Barnum, he couldn't have created a more eye-popping opening than The Lion King 'Circle of Life' number. Pride Rock spirals majestically up from centre stage with Rafiki holding the young cub aloft, while bounding antelopes, fluttering storks, stilt-legged giraffes, and even an 11-foot elephant, all assemble to pay homage.
While it takes Disney bucks to mount extravaganzas like this - allegedly around £6.5 million - much credit has to go to director Julie Taymor, for her remarkable vision. This involves taking the tale back to its African roots to re-invent the look, acting and music of the entire production.
Never has the Dark Continent seemed so colourful and vibrant. Richard Hudson's designs utilise tribal motifs (causing Paul Baker's Zazu to jest that the drapes 'look like Ikea shower curtains'), savannah grasses and palm fronds engage in Garth Fagan's balletic routines, and rainbow-hued singers dangle birds of paradise from 30-foot poles.
Tim Rice and Elton John's Academy award-winning music and lyrics, too, have been augmented by exotic new material by Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin and Hans Zimmer. This adds up to a kaleidoscope of musical styles, from kiddie-pop ('I Just Can't Wait To Be King') to the African-influenced ('Shadowland'). Appealing though this trans-cultural mix is, it doesn't seem to hang together quite as well as Ashman and Menken's superior score for Beauty and the Beast.
Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi's book, with its panto-quality gags and prodigal son storyline, is probably the least changed element of the show, staying close to the original screenplay. This follows Simba's exile after his father Mufasa's (Cornell John) death, and triumphant return to defeat Scar and reclaim his role as King of the Jungle.
Roger Wright as the grown-up Simba is sleek and muscular, though not particularly powerful on the vocal front . Simon Gregor's deftly manipulated Timon puppet and Martyn Ellis's flatulent Pumbaa are an engaging comic duo. But Rob Edwards's limp-pawed Scar is a let-down, being too camp to be truly menacing.
Still, you don't go to this one to marvel at the acting any more than you jump on a Disney theme park ride just to enjoy the engineering. It's the sum of the parts that count here, and The Lion King successfully marries visuals, music and story to create as breathtaking a spectacle as you're likely to see in a West End theatre.
Richard Forrest
