We really enjoyed Mirvish’s production of The Lion King last night at the Princess of Wales Theatre. It’s an incredible visual spectacle - the costumes, the sets, the clever use of perspective, just a feast for the eyes. You should go see it. The opening number where all the animals move down the aisles to the stage is just jaw-dropping. That elephant. Wow.

You kind of have to ignore the constant fart jokes in the Timon and Pumbaa sequences, but that’s left over from the cartoon.

Multiple times I was in awe of how the elaborate costumes worked. How does THAT actor manage to manipulate both arms and the head of their character? …. Oh …. there’s another actor disguised as the grass sitting beside them, operating one of the arms. Cool.

Here’s an interesting behind-the-scenes story from the New York Times (it’s a gift link) about the New York production and how they manage all these complex costumes.

You know I generally like everything, but two things in particular impressed me.

• The theatre uses an app called Gala Pro. Download this to your phone and you can see live closed captioning of all the dialogue and songs, or even translation or described audio (only through your headphones, thankfully.) What a great way to make theatre more accessible for all! I left this running on my phone all through the show (it’s in dark, dark, DARK mode, doesn’t bother anyone else) and periodically glanced down to clarify some of the trickier lyrics.

• We just happened to have a post-show drink in a nearby bar, and who should walk in to pick up his own dinner but actor David D’Lancy Wilson, who plays Mufasa. He graciously chatted with us and OF COURSE I HAD A MILLION QUESTIONS but managed to get one out. So - in several of the glorious sequences full of animals, some of the cast wave long poles on top of which are some bird puppets that fly around very convincingly. Multiple poles from multiple parts of the theatre. I had to ask - Do the poles and birds ever get tangled up? “All the time”, he replied. “One time, somebody hit one of the lights.”

It was really fun seeing this show again. We’d seen it on its original run a decade ago, and I remember asking my niece, who was maybe 4, whether she liked the live show or the original cartoon better. “The cartoon”, she replied, “because it has real lions.”

Well I thought the lions in this production were pretty amazing too. Thanks for chatting with us, Mufasa!

p.s. seeing as how we are aparently patrons of the arts, Mufasa graciously allowed us to pick up the tab. It’s the circle of fooooooooood ….