Running Wild

This is my review of Running Wild at the Norwich Theatre Royal

Running Wild

Michael Morphurgo, a name everyone recognises known for his book turned major motion picture 'War Horse' and now comes the production of his beautiful story Running Wild. The story which follows Lily an English girl who goes on holiday with her mum after the tragic death of her father is set to break everyone's hearts. This tale is brought to life through the small but homely theatre royal stage where the audience is able to get close to the action and connect with the performance.

The tale follows the adventures of nine year old Lily through struggles and challenges. Lily who you can clearly see loves nature, was brought up with the Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories. Her Dad who has ignited her passions as a Chelsea FC fan is a soldier off to serve a final spell of duty in Iraq. After the death of her dad lily is miserable and refuses to do anything. So Lily's grandma suggests Lily and her Mum take a trip to Indonesia, to see the elephants that Lily has always wanted to see to lift her spirits. One of the first things Lily decided to do is to take a ride on an elephant while her Mum goes for a swim in the sea. But the elephant is troubled by something and runs off toward the rainforest leaving his walker. It turns out the elephant Oona was right as a Tsunami occurs leaving Lily lost in the jungle with the runaway elephant. From there on out Lily an Oona take up the challenge of staying alive and on the way they become the best of friends while facing the threat of the horrible poachers.

Jemima Bennett took on the tricky task of becoming Lily and interacting with all the puppets in a realistic way. And let's just say she succeeded. The most beautiful amazing thing about this production was how all the puppeteers manipulated the full-sized puppets so they seemed to breath. They became the puppet and within minutes to the audience became unnoticeable. When the audience searched for that little bit more when the puppets where interacting with others they looked for the puppeteer's facial expressions which did not disappoint. They all became the puppet by creating their puppets noises and moving in the way the animal would and recreating the animals facial features. The puppets themselves where phenomenal, they were full size covered with realistic detail and made in a way so they moved in a smooth natural way.

The music filled the theatre involving everyone in the dramatic performance. Although the music was similar throughout the play it was changed through the help of the versatile actor's voices. The music was made to suit the place in which this was all happening to help bring that part of the world to the Norwich stage. When the tsunami occurred the volume increased causing the audience to get on the edge of their seats with anticipation. And while this was happening the set itself was used to become the tsunami and change the set on the stage for the next scene.

This is a production for all ages and is set to become your favourite play. There are throughout Lily's dangerous adventure when you may be holding back the tears but this performance is worth it. After you have watched this it is almost guaranteed that you will reflect of the performance and think about how poaches are killing wild animals. And if you act of that horrible feeling you get when you think about it its up to you but you wont go away from this performance feeling bored and disappointed. I anything you will be surprised by how everything is brought to life through an amazing production team!

This is a user generated post from our wider Voice community and was not edited by the Voice team. We would love to hear your views too! Sign up for an account and make your Voice heard!

Author

Mia Read

Mia Read

This author has no bio :(

1 Comments

  • Luke Taylor

    On 26 May 2017, 10:11 Luke Taylor Contributor commented:

    Michael Morpurgo is one of my childhood heroes.

Post A Comment

You must be signed in to post a comment. Click here to sign in now