The Lion King

music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice

seen at the Lyceum Theatre on 16 September 2018

Now over 21 years old, this musical adaptation of the 1994 Disney film has been playing continuously at the Lyceum, but I have only just got around to seeing it (never having seen the film) thanks to a visiting Norwegian friend who suggested we go. As I have walked past the theatre many times thinking that one day I should see a performance, but always having it in mind that it would be more enjoyable not to go alone, I was more than ready to agree.

The story is a typical Disney confection of a young creature making good against the odds - alone in the world after a secure familial situation disintegrates, with a wicked relative to complicate matters, and some engaging if surprising friends along the way to help in the task of self-discovery. What is intriguing is the largely successful attempt to blend this with the realities of leonine life - hierarchies within the pride, and the fact of hunting for and eating meat - and the human tendency to rank animals - the lion as king, hyenas as mountebanks, and so on - and the traditions of African tribal music and dance (meaning, probably, sub-Saharan African, since the continent is huge and lions only inhabit a small part of it). Thus there is a lot of drumming in the music, and some of the lyrics are not in English; the dangers of cultural condescension are just about avoided.

The visual design is spectacular, the set (by Richard Hudson) a clever use of a stage revolve with an uncluttered cyclorama allowing for colourful sky effects and giving the splendid costumes and masks (by Julie Taymor, who also directs) ample space to shine. The opening scene is a breathtaking evocation of animal life responding to the sunrise over the plains, with a wonderfully inventive use of masks, puppetry, stilts and generic animal movements providing an exciting start to the proceedings. The puppetry is not as true-to-life as that developed for War Horse, but it does not need to be, as the whole ethos is less realistic. But some characteristic arm movements representing the gestures of lions giving and receiving deference within the pride give an edge to the otherwise anthropomorphic picture of a lion cub being brought to maturity by adverse circumstances.

The theatricality of the performance is what makes it memorable; any other means of representing wild animals on stage would have reduced it to mere pantomime. For a western and urban audience, the use of African musical and visual motifs emphasises the sheer otherness of the animal world, and at the same time allows the cast to mimic the innate dignity of animals somehow without looking ridiculous. Though the story may be somewhat trite, it is dressed up marvellously to be a really enjoyable entertainment.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

by William Shakespeare

seen by live streaming from Stratford-upon-Avon on 12 September 2018

Fiona Laird directs David Troughton as Sir John Falstaff, Rebecca Lacey as Mistress Page and Beth Cordingley as Mistress Ford in a new RSC production of Shakespeare's domestic comedy cleverly designed by Lez Brotherston in a nebulous time (Tudor ruffs and slinky trouser suits) and a place very clearly east of Windsor: in fact, Essex.

In the pre-performance talk the director admitted to having cut some 23% of the text - the tedious Latin jokes, and any other bits of business that she and the cast felt were not sufficiently funny, certain, apparently, that the play was constructed in an unseemly rush and that the consummate showman Shakespeare would have approved of any amount of editorialising. Some topical references were included (at least one to Brexit), and a fair amount of comic business over and above the classic scene of the laundry basket, here transposed to a wheelie bin. (But then, considering much was made of the smell of the rubbish in the bin, why did no-one behave as if Sir John himself smelled awful even though his clothes were stained?) 

One of the cast reminded us that it was fatal to 'ask' the audience for a laugh - audience laughter had to be earned by taking the characters seriously and allowing the comedy of the situation to do its own work. I am not sure that relying on the stereotypes of Essex derived from a popular TV show actually followed this advice consistently. Some of the cast were so broadly 'Essex' that it was almost impossible to see a human being behind the screeching, though maybe the hidden microphones were flattening out any aural subtlety that the live audience could appreciate.

With these reservations inevitably affecting the overall performance, it was nevertheless an amusing production at many points, largely saved by the fact that David Troughton magnificently followed the precept that his character must take himself seriously; it was only thus that his pomposity could be hilarious, his comeuppances richly deserved yet not painful to watch, and the visual gags about his girth (and his absurd codpieces) amusing rather than distasteful. In the meantime the cod Frenchman (Jonathan Cullen as Doctor Caius) was perhaps more successfully funny than the cod Welshman (David Acton as Sir Hugh Evans), and the rather callow Fenton (Luke Newberry) was gloriously maladroit until Anne Page (Karen Fishwick) thought to give him spectacles. But the young lovers were easily swamped by the mayhem created by the merry wives, while George Page (Paul Dodds) was a cipher and Frank Ford (Vince Leigh) rather overdrawn in his jealousy - again, slapstick tended to triumph over subtlety. 

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the text to know whether the substantial cuts were responsible for these imbalances; at too may times there seemed to be too much shouting, as if only comedy of the broadest brush could be relied on to see everyone through. On the other hand, the material itself is managed with a broad brush, so perhaps one there is no other way to do it in order to get the most out of it.