Running Wild
Adapted by Samuel Adamson from the novel by Michael Murpurgo Directors: Timothy Sheader and Dale Rooks Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London NW1 (0844-826 4242) Until 12 June Running time: 1hr 50mins (including interval)
Michael Morpurgo was inspired to write his children’s novel, Running Wild, by the astonishing true story of a girl who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami because the elephant she was riding on sensed what was afoot and charged inland to higher ground. Like the author’s better-known book War Horse, the tale has now been adapted for the stage using “magnificent” animal puppetry, said Fiona Mountford in the London Evening Standard. And what an “audacious and imaginative” play it makes. Topping the bill is Oona the elephant, a “noble”, life-sized creature requiring four puppeteers to operate her. There are also “some wonderfully shaggy orangutans; it’s uncanny how effectively the puppets convey the trembling terror of two of these captured baby creatures”.
I’d say this show outdoes both War Horse and The Lion King in the puppetry stakes, said Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. The life-size animals, created by Finn Caldwell and Toby Olié, make for a “brilliant spectacle” – not just the elephant and “cute” orangutans, but a stealthy crocodile, giant butterflies, and others too. But none of this entirely compensates for the show’s dramatic weakness. The plot involves a girl, Lilly (or, at some performances, a boy, Will), who is taken on holiday to Indonesia in 2004 to help her get over the death of her soldier father. There, she survives the tsunami that kills her mother, by being rescued by a friendly elephant. But all this “lacks a convincing emotional underpinning”: the loss of both Lilly’s parents passes almost unnoticed; and the show becomes “way too earnest” in its delivery of its environmentalist message.
The lesson on the evils of palm oil in the second half is particularly “clunky”, said Tim Auld in The Daily Telegraph. Yet so “exquisite” is the puppetry, which makes it seem that the animals are breathing with life, it scarcely matters. Directors Timothy Sheader and Dale Rooks have also done a superb job with their young cast. On press night, Ava Potter as Lilly, the child fighting for life in the wilderness, was magnificent – both “resourceful and touchingly vulnerable”.
CD of the week
Marissa Nadler: Strangers Bella Union £9.99 You might want to “to lash yourself to the mast before listening to Strangers, because if there’s a singer around these days who could lure sailors to their doom against the rocks, it’s Marissa Nadler”. Spooky, eerie, beautiful stuff (Sunday Times).