Lion King The Musical (Lion King)

Member Name: jennyf16

Product:	Lion King
Date:	07/08/08 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great show, suitable for all ages

Disadvantages: none

Having seen a few shows in London I wanted to see this as it was a film that I really enjoyed at the cinema when I was younger, it was one of the first films to bring a tear to my eye whilst watching it. I also loved the soundtrack as the songs are really catchy and is something that I was looking forward to with the musical version.

I managed to persuade my boyfriend that he too wanted to see it. The only reasonably priced tickets (about £25 plus booking fees) we could get hold of were for a matinee - which we were a bit concerned about due to it being a 'kids' show. However this wasn't an issue and there were plenty of free seats available and had we wanted to we could have moved to be slightly further forward.

The Lyceum theatre is a nice theatre in a lovely area of London, not far from Covent Garden - perfect for eating/drinking before or after the show.

The show itself impressed me from the start with all the animals coming out. I orignally imagined lots of very sweaty people wearing animal costumes like you might see in a pantomime but not to be the animals were all cleverly designed. The people 'playing' the animals were all stood up and had kind of wires that created their arms and legs of the animals. It's really hard to explain but when the human moved their arms/legs/head this create the movement of the animals relevant body part. It was more like miming than acting if that makes sense. It was very cleverly done and not what I expected.

The two children who played the lead roles were very strong actors however what did let them down was the volume of their voice. I do think this was down to the microphone rather than the child though.

The songs were uplifting but not as much as I thought they would be and this disappointed me. This was an excellent show suitable for ALL ages - not something you get very often these days, well worth the money.

Summary: take granny and the kids!