Jungle Book, AVIVA Studios Review
Written by Aimee
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
Last night I ventured out into the wet weather to catch a production of Jungle Book, currently running at AVIVA Studios in Manchester. The production takes the well-known story by Rudyard Kipling that most of us know and love thanks to Disney, and re-imagines it in a new and inventive way. The story follows Mowgli’s journey as a young human boy, learning to live life in the jungle amongst the other animals.
Initially I was excited for this production, I’m always curious to see new takes on old classics and for productions to take bold leaps creatively, however this show fell quite flat. I want to mention the positives first, with my main praise being for the visual elements of the show.
Director for the production, Robert Wilson, is also responsible for the set and lighting design, which stand as real highlights in the show. The set is quite minimal but the way in which it is used to construct the jungle is, for the most part, clever. The back wall of the stage is one big screen, used to project colours and gradients to create the background against which different set pieces are dragged on and off. This set works in harmony with the lighting which is used heavily throughout the show to create this reoccurring, almost silhouette-like visual. Instead of having constant spotlights on the performers, they are often seen lit up only by that back wall screen. This creates a very artistic effect in which we just see their silhouettes as they move and act out different parts of the story.
The sound design by Nick Sagar was also wonderful. During the opening scene lots of animal noises are played to accompany an instrumental track, and the way in which this was done really did make you feel like you were in the jungle. These sounds didn’t just come from speakers at the front of the stage, they felt like they were being played all around you to immerse the audience in the world of the jungle, which I thought worked quite well.
My main issue with this production was that it leant too far into being creative and innovative that it lost the plot of what actually happens. Thanks to Disney, The Jungle Book is a story that a lot of children and adults know well, including myself. However I have never left a theatre more confused about a story that I thought I knew well already. This show is aimed at children, and if I as an adult couldn’t even understand what was going on then I struggle to see how a child would be able to see the story in this. I think this show definitely has an audience that would love and appreciate it, but I don’t think that is children, maybe rather adults who understand more about art and can process and analyse the creative decisions better.
The music written for the show by CocoRosie felt somewhat inconsistent. There were some really beautiful instrumentals and songs that really fit the scene in which they appeared, however there were others that just felt worse in comparison (and a couple that I just found to be really annoying).
Overall I think this production was okay, I think it was aimed slightly at the wrong audience, and maybe would belong better in an art gallery than it would in a theatre.
Jungle Book is running until 31st March at AVIVA Studios in Manchester.