The Lion King
"Sir we'd like to ask you about the nature of your relationship with that cheetah"
About ten years ago I rewatched The Lion King film from 1994. As a child (I was ten years old when it was released) I have vivid memories of listening to its iconic soundtrack again and again on cassette tape in my Mum’s shiny brown Peugeot 205. Elton John’s Greatest Hits and a Queen album completed the library; the good old days of physical media limitations.
As a child, I loved The Lion King, but returning to it a decade ago I recall being a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps I thought I’d go weak at the knees with nostalgia, or simply held the film in such a vaulted position in my memory that I was surprised when I had a lacklustre emotional response to it. It is entirely possible, of course, that I was simply twenty years older and an adult.
I am now ten more years older and fully cynical of musicals, but my girlfriend loves The Lion King and I thought it’d be cool to see its catchy, joyful music live and on stage, so we rocked up at London’s Lyceum Theatre on a rainy night in January to see the long running West End production.
Most people, real people who I know and like and trusted, told me The Lion King is great, and the puppets are amazing. One lady at work who enjoys horror did warn me I might not like it and in future I may consult her before booking these things. But hey, I love stagecraft and practical effects so let’s see what these puppets are all about. Well…
The puppets: a man with a cheetah strapped to his cock, people prancing around with gazelles glued to their arms, a contraption on a bicycle which looked like it had been assembled by a mentally ill homeless person out of scrap metal and while the puppetry on Timone was impressive, the man in a green suit tied to him playing the part just made it look like he was being sexually assaulted by the Grinch. Now there’s some niche cartoon fan porn for you*.
The underused elephants and giraffes were good, Pumba’s costume was cool, and the hyenas looked the part even if they managed to be the most annoying characters in a show jam packed with irksome performances. Inexplicably, during a typically banal tune featuring the pack of scavengers, four extras from Magic Mike in hyena cosplay with six packs showing came on and started breakdancing.
The whole show felt like the makers realised the film is only 88 minutes long, so had to pad the play out with lots of really loud noises and movement and songs which didn’t fit, as if the kids would lose focus so needed a shot in the grey matter to remind them how much fun they’re not having. And so they can whack a 20 minute break in and flog you overpriced ice cream.
If you didn't have a pre-existing fondness for the characters I think it's highly unlikely you'd become enamoured with them off the back of this. Thinly drawn, confusingly sometimes portrayed as half human, weak performances lacking personality. Scar was insipid, though becomes a creepy nonce later in the production, turning his attention to the itty bitty kitty Nala, rather than the more appropriately aged Lioness Sarabi as in the cartoon.
For my part, by the interval my brain had retreated back into an interminable two hour meeting I’d had that afternoon like it was my happy place.
Child actors were bad, and much of The Lion King felt amateurish in places. A fairly lame Frozen joke was thrown in to keep it relevant. Frozen was released in 2013, just to give you an idea of how relevant. The aesthetic is all over the place, many sets were underwhelming, sparse props; although the stampede scene was impressive until Mufasa started doing karate.
I didn’t like the delivery of the lines, translation of the film's script or much of the singing and The Lion King’s biggest crime of all- they rarely featured the big songs, and when they did, they didn’t lean into them enough. The songs written for the show were given full greater stage time and perhaps this is personal preference but a large part of why we were there was the classics.
Half way through my girlfriend asked if I wanted to leave. I did, but I knew she still held hope it might get better, so we stayed. Fifteen minutes into the second half, there was a technical issue (sadly not “technically this play is crap, so we’re giving up”) and the lights came back on. We took it as a sign and beelined for Charing Cross station. As we left one of the ushers in a crowd of them said “it will restart soon” to me, to which I replied “Oh it’s not the technical issue, this is just awful”. They all laughed. They knew.
Obnoxiously boring and confused about what it wants to do, be its own thing or a clever reimagining of the cartoon, I can’t even award The Lion King points for the music from the original movie, because it either wasn’t there, or wasn’t any good. All your favourite songs from the classic Disney movie… ruined. Just put on the film again if you really need to.
SISTER ACT
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
MATILDA
CIRQUE DU SOLEIL
CALENDAR GIRLS
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