Review | The Jungle Book at Chichester Festival Theatre: "CFYT are a class act"

As per usual, the youngsters of the CFYT rise to the occasion. I’ve said, repeatedly, that when watching this company you forget that you’re watching children and young people who are non-professional. Their standard of performance always warms the soul.

And this time, I’m pleased to say, I can report no difference. Their performances remain as strong and as entertaining as ever. CFYT are a class act.

The press-night cast was led by Sarada Pillai as Mowgli – a far cry from the Disney character and much closer to the feisty Kipling original. Occasionally it was hard to hear her – but this was not her fault. More of that later.

As her guardians, Bagheera and Baloo, Edward Bromell (who has something of the Charlie Stemp about him) and Courtesy Phiri work beautifully together. There’s also lovely work from Freddie Lyons as the villain of the pieces, Shere Khan and Elijah Pena as Biscuit the buffalo.

Bravest and most outrageous performance of the evening comes from the sublime Spencer Dixon as Kaa. Again – forget Disney. No lisping asp do we have here. Dixon’s Kaa is camp and glittery with a dash of Ru Paul and holds the stage from the minute he sets foot on it.

There are weaknesses – but they’re not the fault of the cast. The script feels odd; there’s the formality of Kipling’s original but Bhattacharyya throws in modern slang and the two clash. Musically, Act 1 is tuneless – it comes across as dialogue set to music rather than songs, so operatic in intent, and lyrically it doesn’t shine; the songs tend to the cumbersome and are just not memorable. Act 2 is musically far superior.

I mentioned earlier an inability to hear some of the dialogue. Sound on press night was awful. Music many times drowned dialogue and mics weren’t always up when they should have been. The CFT is, in the opinion of many, including me, the finest theatre in the country outside of the capital and these youngsters are worthy of the tech-crew’s best. They were let down.

Hopefully the technical issues will be resolved and the youngsters of the CFYT can have yet another memorable set of performances.

Support them. They’re the best.

Until December 31.