The Lion King Tickets:42 recommendations
Spectacular, award-winning Disney musical based on the 1994 movie
About The Lion King
Produced by Disney Theatrical, The Lion King is of course based on the 1994 animated film of the same name.
The show goes back to basics, taking inspiration from a number of different cultures in its music and presentation. Rather than recreating the image of the well-loved Disney characters, the animals are created using giant hollow puppets and costumes that effectively evoke the characters, for example, Japanese Banraku puppetry is used to portray a number of animals, notable Timon the meerkat.
With the sweeping score from Elton John and tribal-flavoured incidental music and unique lighting, The Lion King is visually stunning, with twenty-five species of animal, bird, fish and insect vividly represented.
The show also incorporates all the space it has available, using the vast stalls of the Lyceum Theatre to draw theatregoers into the show. This has certainly proved to be a winning formula, with The Lion King having played to over 40 million people worldwide.
The Lion King’s appeal was noticed from the outset, with the first production opening in Minneapolis in July 1997 and moving permanently to Broadway only three months later where, once settled, it swept the board at the 1998 Tony and Drama Desk awards. In 1999, The Lion King opened in London and Toronto.
The twenty-first century really saw The Lion King go global, with productions popping up in Hamburg, The Hague, Tokyo, Seoul, Johannesburg and an Australian production which played in Sydney and then Melbourne from 2003 to 2006 before flying to Shanghai. The latest show to open is the Paris production, which began in September 2007. The Toronto production closed in 2004 after a successful run, while The Lion King continues to draw huge numbers at the Lyceum Theatre with no sign of abating.
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Reviews
The Stage
“There is enough jaw-dropping theatrical spectacle in The Lion King to tickle even the most hardened theatre critic’s palate. As the procession of animals makes its way down the aisle at the beginning or the cast controls a flight of coloured birds across the auditorium after the interval, you really are transported thousands of miles away from the Strand on a drizzly London night to the primary colours and vegetation of the Africa Savannah...”
