Ad Disclosure: We were invited to the press preview for this performance.
Last night we headed into the city to go & see Madagascar the Musical at The Alexandra, Birmingham. Based on the Dreamworks animated movie, this musical tells the story of the zoo animal’s escape from Central Park Zoo and their journey to Madagascar.
With the help of the penguins, Alex the Lion and his best friends Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo leave their cushy lifestyle at the zoo to go and see the world. The musical follows the original story of the 2005 Dreamworks movie closely – but due to packing the same plot into a shorter musical format it does have a few gaps where they jump to another location or plot point without making it clear how one thing led to another. For example, while the penguins were shown to be planning to leave, it wasn’t clear how Marty was able to waltz out of the zoo after them – whereas in the movie he uses their escape to also make his own.
All four of us enjoyed this family musical and it was certainly a big hit with all the younger kids in the audience. The music was good, the puppets were great, and I enjoyed the sets & most of the costumes – a few of the muscle suits under the animal ‘skins’ looked a bit odd at times, but overall they did a good job of bringing the animated animals to the stage.
Jarneia Richard-Noel absolutely stole the show as the sassy Gloria, with her unbelievable voice and cheeky dance moves. The girls both loved Joseph Hewlett’s performance as Alex the Lion, and I thought that Connor Keetley did an amazing job in his first cover role as King Julien. He really brought the crazy lemur to life and his interactions with the other characters – and to some extent the audience – had everyone watching laughing out loud. Karim Zeroul will be going on for the role for most of the tour, but has just announced the birth of his baby girl so his absence last night was definitely understandable!
The music & songs were enjoyable and of course included a rousing performance of Move it Move it, the iconic track of the whole Madagascar series, complete with dancing lemurs. The musical explores the ideas of freedom in the wild and the friendships between the different animals and the songs reflect those themes, with a particularly sweet one about being there for each other being reprised throughout the show. I did think that the actor playing Marty the zebra was possibly selected for his rapping skills and that his singing vocals were the weakest of the cast, but they weren’t bad – just not as spectacular as the rest, although it wasn’t as noticeable in the second half of the show.
There were a lot of laughs throughout the show, although a few of the most funny moments from the movie fell a bit flat when played out on the stage. The whole audience was in stitches at several points though, and a lot of the humour really made the kids in the audience enjoy the show – and there were a few jokes that had just the adults laughing too. Alex the Lion had a lot of funny moments, including his tranquilliser induced fever dream before waking up to find himself on a ship bound for Kenya, and his hunger dreams of singing steaks that found himself awaking with his teeth on his best friend’s butt as his prey drive began to overtake his mind.
I did think that the first half of the show felt a touch disjointed at times and it certainly paled in comparison to the second half, when they made it to Madagascar and it became an all-singing all-dancing madcap adventure. The puppets were fantastic, particularly the lemurs and the penguins – Mort was totally adorable, and Private was just as daft as his animated counterpart. The staging was pretty good – certainly for a touring show – and the fantastic lighting helped bring the island of Madagascar to life on stage.
The finale certainly had the audience up on their feet and dancing along to the lemurs as they threw a farewell party for the four friends and their penguin friends, after a happy ending for all. Overall we found the musical to be really enjoyable and it certainly got the four of us laughing out loud throughout. It is a fun & entertaining family musical, and it isn’t pretending to be anything but just that.
Georgie says: It was absolutely amazing, especially for the actors to play animals – the costumes were well designed and the puppets were brilliant.
Lydia says: I really liked all of it and I think the songs were fun, amusing and amazing. The dancing was well done and amusing too! Also, the costumes were very good and fitting. I really like all the different puppets, especially Mort, who was absolutely adorable! The penguins were cute and funny too, and all the characters were very funny. Overall, I really enjoyed it from the amazing costumes and puppets, to the fun way everything plays out and the characters amazing acting.
Madagascar the Musical is showing at The Alexandra, Birmingham until 17th March 2024 before touring the rest of the UK. Tickets, showtimes & more info can be found at https://agtickets.com/birmingham.
