Review: The Lion King, Bristol Hippodrome

The Lion King after-party on Thursday evening following the press night performance was at Za Za Bazaar, almost the name of the character with the best lines in this incredibly popular Disney musical that has returned to the Bristol Hippodrome after seven years.

At the start of the musical’s new UK and Ireland tour, Zazu – King Mufasa’s right hand hornbill – was given a few lines that worked a treat with the Bristol audience.

“This looks like a shower curtain from St Nick’s Market,” Matthew Forbes said as another beautifully hand painted curtain appeared on stage.

Disney also took a lighthearted swipe at themselves, with Scar, played with suitable menace by Richard Hurst, encouraging Zazu to sing something “with a bit of bounce” and him bursting into Let It Go from Frozen. “Anything but that!” he cried in despair, echoing parents of children across the world.

Matthew Forbes plays Zazu at the Bristol Hippodrome – photo by Helen Maybanks

So there are a handful of new elements in this production, but on the whole it is a carbon copy of the original Broadway and West End smash, with all of the songs from the original film by Elton John and Tim Rice here and a few more for good measure.

More than two decades after its debut, fans who have probably seen it many times before were still clapping the big opening moments with just as much gusto as when they saw it the first time.

Here’s Rafiki, played with a necessary twinkle in her eye by Thandazile Soni. Here’s the elephant sauntering down the aisle within touching distance of the audience in the pit. Here are the giraffes gloriously brought to life by two men and four pairs of stilts.

The Lion King brings the animals of the Serengeti to life – photo by Deen van Meer

The opening scene with the animals paying their respects to the newborn lion cub Simba is a showstopper and quite possibly nothing afterwards manages to better it.

But the two-and-a-half-hour show originally directed by Julie Taymor races by, with changes of pace coming as rapidly as Scar’s welcoming of hyenas to Pride Rock after (spoiler alert) he kills his brother towards the end of act one.

The stampeding wildebeest and its tragic aftermath caused my eight-year-old daughter to grip my arm tightly; while I couldn’t help tapping my feet along to Simba and Nala’s trippy I Just Can’t Wait to be King, and Timon and Pumbaa’s classic Hakuna Matata.

Despite the razzmatazz and huge production values, some of the best moments in this show are the simplest, including some shadow puppetry and the spectacular creation of Mufasa’s giant head from a hodgepodge of different wooden shapes.

It may be 20 years since The Lion King made its West End debut, but it still feels as fresh as ever. Be prepared to be entertained.

The Lion King is at Bristol Hippodrome until Saturday 23rd November 23. If you don’t catch it in Bristol it will be at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre from July 9 to August 29 2020. For tickets and more information, visit www.thelionking.co.uk/bristol

Read more: Les Miserables to come to Bristol Hippodrome