Madagascar – A Musical Adventure Jr.

This musical version of the animated DreamWorks motion picture follows the story line from New York Central Park zoo on an expected journey to King Julien’s Madgascar where he and his lemurs rule supreme. Alex, the lion, is the star performer at the zoo but needs a change. His friends – Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo, Melman the giraffe, a couple of lionesses and Mason the monkey -  escape with him on this adventure. The penguins travel too but they are a troubling influence.

With such a well known story as this, it is very challenging for the director to keep the audience on side. Added to the pressure was that this was junior theatre where the very large cast was made up of youths from about sixteen and younger. Madeleine Johns has handled the task very well indeed.  She was very well assisted by the flowing choreography by Meredith Johns and the effective costumes by Deb Rubendra and Stacey Goodwin.

All the leads were quite good, with Connor Chadwick as Lion, Mia Ambrosi as Gloria the hippo and Torin Moodie as Melman the giraffe being really good across singing, dancing and acting. The penguins were excellent – they moved as one and were a nasty little group.  To me, Emerson Mcshea was outstanding as King Julien. There were only a couple of minor glitches during the performance e.g. voice clarity a couple of times and odd noises in the sound system.

I must admit I was somewhat skeptical as to what I was going to see but I left in a very happy frame of mind having enjoyed this free flowing production and in awe of the talent of some of the cast. This was an important step in the development of our next generation of performers. Well done.

William Davies