They whooped and cheered from the very first note.
Madagascar the Musical was a feel-good pick-me up for all ages at Eden Court, Inverness last night.
It’s based on the 2005 Dreamworks animated movie and judging by the enthusiasm of the crowd, the film is a firm favourite in Highland households.
In the unlikely event that Madagascar the movie has passed any P&J readers by, it tells the story of several zoo animals’ escape from Central Park Zoo in New York and how they accidentally find themselves in exotic Madagascar while being shipped to another zoo.
That’s about it.
Alex the Lion finds Madagascar so vegan that he ends up trying to take a bite out of his best friend Marty the Zebra’s backside, and that’s about the only dark moment in the piece.
The rest of the time it’s simply high-octane singing and dancing and a few slapstick moments which made my six year old grandson laugh.
Because of the shorter time frame to tell the story, the musical’s plot is far thinner than the movie’s, with a lot of suspension of disbelief required to glide over unexplained story leaps.
And how do you recreate animated animals on stage?
By having the performers don costumes with animal muscle bulging under the skin/fur.
Cleverly designed but they can’t have been easy to sing and dance in, and not to mention HOT.
Some performers had the added complication of large hooves to contend with.
Grandson didn’t like the costumes, describing them as ‘silly.’ But they didn’t put him off, he loved the rest.
I’m glad he had already seen and loved the movie as I’m not sure he would have followed the disjointed plot if he’d known nothing about it.
I didn’t know what the lady in the round grey suit with a tiny tail was meant to be at first- she turned out to be a hippopotamus named Gloria, played by Jarneia Richard-Noel. Her outstanding voice soared to the rafters and took us with it.
There were cute penguins and lemurs, and Melman the giraffe and the tiny King Julien were puppeteered to perfection.
The premise that the zoo animals didn’t like freedom in the wild after all is perhaps a little suspect.
And the idea that animals can be friends and always be there for each other— well perhaps that’s trying the writers trying to teach humans some morality.
Other than that, the show is loud, brash and bright, perfect for the younger members of the audience and toe-tapping for all of us.
And we all loved the iconic ‘I like to move it, move it’, performed twice with all of us up to dance in the second rendition.
Final verdict: Good, clean, unchallenging fun for all the family.
The show runs until Sunday May 5.
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