This is a show based on the Madagascar movie about animals called Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe and Gloria the hippo and a bunch of smart penguins. The story starts off with them all in a zoo in New York City. One of them tries to escape and they try to go to the train station, they then get put in crates after ‘the people’ decide to return them to the wild. The penguins open their crates, take control of the boat and try to make them go to Antarctica but they turn too sharply and the animals in the crates all fall off the boat. The penguins then sail off to Antarctica. The story follows Alex and his friends as they try to work out where they are, how to get food and go back to the zoo, all apart from Marty who wants to stay on the island.

I went to see this show on the final night, it was a last minute plan but I’m so glad that I did it. I think I might do it again and try to get last minute show tickets if I find I’m free. They gave an encore of the song, move it, move it after the performance had finished everyone was standing up dancing including me. I enjoyed seeing everyone in the theatre up and dancing.

Some of the younger children fidgeted quite a bit but obviously enjoyed it. I would have liked it if one of the performances could have been older kids only.

Melman's giraffe costume was fitted to a human, his shoes looked like hooves, his hands also had hooves, which held a stick supporting the head and neck which came up above the actor's head. I think this would be really tricky to hold up for the whole show. 

I didn’t enjoy the skin tight lion outfit. It was a little bit tight for the man so that would have been better in a different design, I think he would have been more comfortable dancing in a different one.

The penguins were puppets, they were hilarious the whole show. There were only three penguins in the show unlike the four in the movie.

They sang some of the hits from the show including move it, move it, big and chunky, best friends by Hanz Zimmer and king of madagascar.

I loved that they kept the ‘Bad Kitty’ scene from the original film, where an older lady hits the lion with her purse. It really made us all laugh. It was my favourite part of the show.

I love musicals and want to plan more trips to the theatre. Next year they have more childrens ones including chitty chitty bang bang and the lion the witch and the wardrobe which would be vibe. I also want to watch the film again after seeing the show, I think I will watch it on the weekend.

I would recommend that you go and watch, especially if you have young children. It's not one of my top 10 musicals but still has a good energy and you can sing along.

I went with my Aunt Laura, here's what she said:

“The show was full of colour, music but related to the film, keeping in many of the jokes and humour that people can relate to. The puppets that they used with moving parts to bring them to life. The 2nd half of the show had a faster paste with more upbeat music and dancing”