Puppet master’s proven ingredients cook up another triumph

Running Wild Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre ★★★★

GOODNESS, but Michael Morpurgo knows how to pull the heart strings: chuck together some noble animals, place them in a catastrophic situation, sprinkle with feisty children, and Bob’s yer uncle, you’ve got a hit. A flippant summary, maybe, but not entirely devoid of truth. Morpurgo’s at it again in Running

Wild, adapted from his novel for stage by Samuel Adamson. The setting is the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean in 2004, there’s a resourceful child at its heart and there’s a menagerie of stoic animals. But, if it ain’t broke …

For Running Wild, directed by Timothy Sheader and Dale Rooks, Morpurgo teams up again with Finn Caldwell and Toby Olié, two of the puppeteers who helped turn War Horse into one of the biggest earners in National Theatre history. It mashes up The

Jungle Book with a David Attenborough-esque plea for the preservation of endangered ecosystems and a rather clunky lesson about the evils of palm oil. Nevertheless, it softened up every cynical bone in my body and is, in short, a winner. A young child, some nights a girl called Lilly (Ava Potter) and some nights a boy called Will (Joshua Fernandes or Tyler Osborne) – finds herself (let’s say “her” as Potter was playing the role) alone in the jungle in Indonesia having been saved from the tsunami by an elephant. Her father, a soldier, is dead; her mother may or may not have been drowned by the tidal wave. The extraordinary story is based upon true events and Morpurgo takes this and spins it into fantasy.

Lilly and the elephant meet a family of orang-utans, whom she befriends before hunters in the pay of the evil Mr Anthony (Stephen Ventura) take them prisoner and the adventure really kicks in. Adults will find much to enjoy, much to question, but this is, at heart, a show for children.

The puppetry is exquisite, with full-sized animals seeming to breathe with documentary life, while Potter is magnificent, both resourceful and touchingly vulnerable.

Until June 12. (0844 826 4242; openairtheatre.com)