"Madagascar The Musical"

Nottingham Theatre Royal.

Based on the DreamWorks animated motion picture, "Madagascar The Musical" follows all of the film's characters as they escape from their home in New York’s Central Park Zoo and find themselves on an unexpected journey to the madcap world of King Julien’s Madagascar.  

Alex the lion is the king of the urban jungle, the main attraction at New York's Central Park Zoo. He and his best friends – Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo – have spent their whole lives in blissful captivity before an admiring public and with regular meals provided for them. Not content to leave well enough alone, Marty lets his curiosity get the better of him and makes his escape – with the help of some prodigious penguins – to explore the world.

After escaping to the New York City streets and being arrested and put into boxes to be shipped out, the penguins hijack the boat, which results in all the animals, in their boxes becoming shipwrecked, and guess where they ended up?

Karim Zeroul plays King Julien. Karim, younger children will know from CBBC, but the older TV viewer will know him from being on "Strictly Come Dancing" back in 2019 where he reached the final. Although the majority of Karim's career has been on TV, he initially started in the theatre, so he is going back to his roots.

It's therefore no surprise that he is so at ease on the musical stage. His voice has power, his face shows the fun that he is having, his legs and body show his dancing skills, highlighted in the first act, and his knees probably show quite a bit of hard skin as he performs on his knees throughout the second act in his role as The King - think the stature of Lord Farquaard in "Spamalot".

Joseph Hewlett towers over everyone, almost everyone, as Alex the lion, with a voice as big as his stature, and with Alex's mane, he looks even taller. 

Jarneia Richard-Noel is Gloria the hippo. Now, all of these roles are really fun and all the actors have great voices and know how to move it move it!

Francisco Gomes definitely has earned his stripes as the adventurous Marty the zebra. The contagious comedy from Marty is almost akin to that of Donkey in "Shrek"; a role that would also suit Francisco down to the ground in my humble opinion.

Joshua Oakes-Rogers is Melman the giraffe. This is a wonderful character as Joshua is also the puppet master with this role as he is definitely head and shoulders (do giraffes have shoulders?) height wise above the other animals.

Laura Marie Benson (Kowalski/Candy), Ella Howlett (Rico/Lynn), Brogan McFarlane (Private/Mort), Connor Keetley (Skipper/Maurice) and James Hilton-Foster (Mason/Lars/Ship's Captain) complete the cast with Gabriel Hinchcliffe and Aidan Harkins, all playing various puppet characters.

Directed by award-winning Kirk Jameson, with Laura Marie Benson as Resident Director, this show is primarily aimed at kids, of course it is, and while the first act maybe is a wee bit on the slow side, the second act ramps everything up. Of course, we need to set the story and introduce the characters in the first part, and that I noticed was when the young audience were at their fidgiest. Come Act two, and that opening of "I Like To Move It" really hyped them up to maximum.

Puppet Design by Max Humphries and Puppet Direction from Emma Brunton. Now, these puppet creations are incredible, with the lemurs being the cutest of puppets with their big watery looking eyes, in complete contrast to the evil looking, cheetah like, voracious creatures that would have made a swift meal of Marty had there not have been that intervention by Alex!

Darren John is the Musical Director with Musical Supervision from Mark Crossland. there are some real bangers in this show; not just the BIG song that everyone was waiting for which was then repeated as the finale, but songs like "Best Friends", "Together Forever", "It's Showtime", "Relax, Be Cool, Chill Out" and the track that always reminds me of Europe's "The Final Showdown introduction, "King Of Madagascar".

Choreographed by Fabian Alouise. This is a wonderfully, energetically choreographed piece of theatre that maybe the kids might not appreciate, but, as an adult, you can see the work gone in to creating this area of the show, especially in the second act for King Julien.

Tom Rogers set design is based on the original set and costume designs. It captures the zoo feel. the streets of New York, and then the lush flora and fauna of the Madagascan jungles.

Howard Hudson's lighting design is everything a young audience wants. It's colourful, bright and exciting when matched with the crystal clarity of the sound design, by Chris Whybrow.

It's great fun and there's a happy ending, so what more could you want to entertain your little ones this week, and with the whole show and interval coming in at just over a hundred minutes, there's not time for the kids to get bored with anything they see on stage.

"Madagascar The Musical" is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Saturday 27 July, so gather the kids up and move it move it to the jungles of Madagascar, via Nottingham, and have a crack a lackin' time!