Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton – until 21st July 2024
Reviewed by Amanda Allen
4****
What a wonderful thing it is to see families of all ages out enjoying the theatre together, and that’s exactly what Madagascar The Musical, delivered last night. If this was your child’s first visit to the Theatre, then you chose well. From the start this was just good wholesome fun. Telling a story about friendship between “different” characters
Touring since 2018 this is a slick well performed show, with excellent puppetry, singing, dancing and costumes that kept you entertained throughout. The outstanding performance for me was King Julien played by Karim Zeroual, how he danced whist on his knees the whole time is amazing. The way he portrayed the character of the ring tailed lemur in charge of the island of Madagascar was inspired. Helped by a inspirational, well designed costume he captivated the audience from his first appearance. Alex, the Lion played by Joseph Hewlett, was great, he knew he was the king of New York, well central Park Zoo at least, and made sure everyone else knew it too. His best pal Marty, the Zebra, played by Fransisco Gomes, had the best comic lines and made the audience laugh throughout the show, especially when he realised, he was being looked at as dinner by his best friend!
The story is basically one of friendship across the divide, demonstrating that we can all live happily alongside each other if we want too badly enough. Although the story is a bit sparce it managed to portray the central themes of appreciating what we have, friendship crossing all barriers and the grass is not always greener on the other side!
My main disappointment with this show was the gaps in the story, how did they go from being in Grand Central Station New York into crates on a boat heading for the Arctic? I understand that the live musical can’t show all the detailed story telling of an animated film which is much more involved, but some elements needed more explanation. Having never seen the animated movie I needed more information. The cheeky penguins were another highlight, excellent puppeteering skills from Laura Marie Benson as Kowalski, Ella Howlett as Rico, Brogan McFarlane as Private and Connor Keetley as Skipper. Gloria the Hippo (Jarneia Richard-Noel) dancing to king Juliens song “I like to Move it, move it” was brilliant, the whole audience was on their feet joining in and laughing along. Joshua Oakes-Rogers gave us a wonderful demonstration of his puppeteering skills, and his performance of
Hypochondriac Giraffe, Marty was terrific
In conclusion this is a great introduction for young families to live theatre, although it has an uninspiring soundtrack, the only song we all knew was Move it move it, and a very simplistic story, the small cast of only 10 gave us an excellent night out, simple family fun for all, buy a
ticket now before they all go!