"The Life Of Pi"

Nottingham Theatre Royal.

I really did not know what to expect with this play as I can just about remember parts of the film; I knew there was a tiger and a young man on a raft, but not much more, and I'd not read the book, so it was with a feeling of anticipation and interest that I took my seat to watch this stage version of "The Life Of Pi".

The family have to leave India to travel to Ontario, taking their animals with them to start up a new zoo in, to them, a foreign country. Following the sinking of the cargo ship that leaves just five survivors, we are taken to the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean where they are stranded on a single lifeboat. A sixteen-year-old boy, in this production on Tuesday night, Pi was a girl, along with a zebra, an hyena, an orangutan and a hungry Bengal tiger, and are left at the mercy of Mother Nature. Time is against them and they have one mission; to survive. 

The story on stage starts in a hospital where a reporter is intent on getting the full story of what happened from Pi, and through a series of flashbacks, she gets a story, but it's not the story that she wanted to hear, or print. This leads us to an alternative story, but which of the two stories is the true one?

Adwitha Arumugam plays Pi, and is on stage for the majority of the time. 

Ralph Birtwell plays the Father, who has to put the teenage Pi in her place at the start when Pi thinks it fun to enter the lair of the Bengal Tiger, impressing the real danger of all of the wild animals that they have at their zoo in India.

Mamaji is played by Chand Martinez, Goldy Notay plays Amma, Sharita Oomeer is Lulu Chen, Lilian Tsang is Mrs Okamoto, Vinesh Veerasami is the Russian Soldier, Sonya Venugopal is Rani and Antony Antunes plays the French Cook. This group also double up on several roles as well as these main ones.

There are various puppet masters who manipulate, and bring Richard Parker, the name given to the vicious Bengali tiger to life. The group of puppeteers also breathe life into the Orang utan, the zebra, the hyena, plus butterflies, turtles and fish.

One thing that I was not ready for was the reality of the food chain element in this play, with graphic scenes of the attacks by Richard Parker, right from its' initial appearance on stage. This was however, done incredibly well, but maybe not for some of the younger audience attendees.

That said I was completely hypnotised by every single one of the puppet animals. So lifelike were their appearance that you had no issues seeing past the puppeteers and believing that you were watching animals on stage. Their breath, their stealth, their movements were all incredibly well observed, and that is what made the more violent scenes even more shocking.

Directed by Max Webster, this really has to be one of the most stunning and frightening pieces of theatre doing the rounds, and while watching a film can de-sensitise what we see, when you see stuff like this, just feet away from you, you get a real emotional impact, something I am sure that Mr Webster intended, and certainly succeeded in achieving.

The Set and Costumes are designed by Tim Hatley. The set itself folds out into an Indian market place as well as the zoo scenes effortlessly.

The puppets are designed by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell. There are no words that I can write to give you an idea of just how lifelike these puppets are. Their design means that the operators have to be in crouched positions for the majority of the play, but suffering for their art - in the knee, back and thigh muscle departments, mean that we get an evening of expert puppetry. After all this is the Nottingham Puppet Festival, and you won't see better than the art shown here.

The Video Design is by Andrzej Goulding. With the hospital scenes, as the story flows back to the scenes in the Pacific, the whole back wall just seems to have a vertical watery film, and not for anyone who suffers from motion sickness.

The Lighting Design is by Tim Lutkin  and the Sound Design is by Carolyn Downing, both areas create such an all round atmosphere that you actually feel that you are there on the journey with Pi.

Words can't really describe the magic that is involved in this production, it's such a stunning piece of theatre that it has to be seen to be appreciated, but maybe not if you have a queasy disposition!

"The Life Of Pi" is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Saturday 20 April.