This pandemic-delayed blockbuster, based on the hit Oscar-winning animated movie that resulted in a generation of toddlers trilling Let It Go, is a triumph over expectation. At least it will be for anyone who has formed the impression that the Disney brand is more about corporate crowd-pleasing than great theatre. Or, if you’re a theatre person through and through you might feel a little defensive about a Hollywood studio encroaching onto theatre’s boards, preferring it to stick to screen and stay away from stage.
But there is no denyingthe invention or the enduring appeal of The Lion King, now back at the Lyceum Theatre and only a five minutes walk away from the gorgeously revamped Theatre Royal Drury Lane. As with that show Disney brought on talent that is theatre through and through. The same is true for this adaptation, directed by former Donmar Warehouse artistic director Michael Grandage who turned to his long time collaborator Rob Ashford for the choreography. Although since the show was announced in 2014 (a year after the film was released) the production had already gone through two directors and choreographers before the Grandage and Ashford came on board.
However, there is one unlikely yet hilariously horrifying possibility brought about by Frozen’s transition to the stage — the chance that one day the musical may run in the same city as Bryony Lavery’s harrowing play about a paedophile killer which has the same title and which, a few years ago, had a run at the other Theatre Royal in Haymarket.
But putting this distraction quickly aside this musical version of the film is as joyous as it is spectacular — which is to say hugely. There are moments in this show that only the jaw-dropping spectacle of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child can match.
Here the story of sisters Anna (Stephanie McKeon) and Elsa (Samantha Barks) by book writer Jennifer Lee (who also wrote and co-directed the original film, is supercharged but not overshadowed by stage magic that on more than occasion has the audience gasping.
For the three people in the world who don’t know the story, Elsa has to live a life of restraint in order to tame her dangerous powers which can freeze anything or anyone around her. And it does. One moment sees this theatre’s proscenium arch — which here is a carved, woody, jungly and um…Inca-y affair— turned into ice. Fits of Elsa’s temper trigger frost and icy shards which appear with the kind of cracking only heard when an ice breaker plows through the arctic or when making properly a really good gin and tonic.
The show stays true to its main message which is all about embracing who you really are and not, as Elsa has been coached, to stifle it. But what enriches it is that Anna’s story is allowed to be as much about sexual awakening as it is finding true love. This is done with just enough knowingness and wit to keep adults engaged, and although the world in which the story is set is very much Queen Elsa’s realm, this is Anna’s show and journey of self discovery.
Both McKeon and Barks sing terrifically, but Mckeon’s Anna has all the fun, including a number in which she’s conscripted into a chorus line of near-naked, sauna-loving Nordic people. It is a wonderfully unexpected diversion by composer lyricist Robert Lopez but makes much more sense when you know he was the co-creator of The Book of Mormon. Expect the same old Disney tropes, but also the glorious unexpected.
