Stage: Law of the jungle
Emporium serve up a classy portion of Mr Kipling with a show for familes & far more
From day one I have been impressed by the quality of productions being staged at Emporium in London Road. In fact it strikes me that since winning the best venue Brighton Fringe award it really is beginning to become not only the jewel in the crown of the rapidly improving London Road but actually in the city.
I recently raved about an exceptional production of Joe Orton’s ‘What The Butler Saw’ and was earlier blown away by an incredibly impressive ‘Into The Woods’ that I think was far closer to Sondheim’s vision of the show than the Disney epic which, whilst good, lacked the irreverent humour that I expected.
Add to this two very good Christmas pantomimes that I thoroughly enjoyed, bringing some of the real art and heart of panto back to the city and you might guess that I am a fan.
The next show is a summer production of the Rudyard Kipling classic, ‘The Jungle Book’. Now I’m no fan of that Disney movie either, it simply did not work for me – so I was delighted to see that the Emporium show is in two very safe hands. Firstly directed by James Weisz, the man behind much of what Emporium has become. Secondly it has been written, script, music and lyrics, by Mike Carter. Some of you may recognise the name, Mike was the man behind a string of huge hit Christmas productions at Brighton’s long missed Gardner Arts Centre. Year on year Mike and the clever Garner team would stage a production for families, schools and kids that gave a good balance to the pantomimes scene which at that point in time was being debased by the casting of soap stars, the omission of traditional pantomime routines, transformations, slapstick, dames and principal boys. It wasn’t only happening to trad pantos either, I sadly remember seeing a production of ‘Peter Pan’ where he was portrayed on roller skates – whatever was that all about.
Over at the Gardner there was much fun to be enjoyed but always with a classier edge and at the heart of this was Mike Carter’s intelligent staging and working of classic tales like Roald Dahl’s ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’.
Casting was recently announced for the Emporium ‘Jungle Book’ and the first thing I noticed was the inclusion of Gordon Winter who first arrived in Brighton as the baddie in Mike Carter’s ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, ‘Pinocchio’, and ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Gordon also plays Jacob Jackson in Mike’s just-released WW2 Feature Film ‘Brothers of War’. Other films include Walt Disney’s ‘A Kid in Aladdin’s Court’, Mike Leigh’s ‘Secrets and Lies’, and ‘A.F.R.A.I.D’.
His numerous TV appearances include: ‘The Thirteenth Tale’, ‘Friday Night Dinner’, ‘Birds of a Feather’, ‘Casualty’, ‘Minder’, ‘Frank Stubbs’, ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’. Extensive theatre includes: Manchester Royal Exchange, Chichester Festival Theatre, touring Hull Truck’s ‘Bouncers’ as ‘Lucky Eric’, Mephistopheles in ‘Dr. Faustus’, and the James Weisz directed Brighton/Edinburgh Festival ‘Get Carter’. And you may well have seen him in a variety of Brighton Fringe Festival productions.
Gordon now takes on the role of Chief Monkey in this new all singing all dancing production and I for one cannot wait to see what this most inventive of companies does with the story.
Of course at the heart of this much loved story is the boy character of Mowgli, here taken on by Kamari Romeo, graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama studying Drama, Applied Theatre and Education. He has since been writing, producing and performing in professional and collaborative community projects. He has recently completed character work on BBC’s ‘In the Night Garden’ based at the 02 Arena (2015).
If, like me, you are a grown up who refuses to grow up then head down London Road to enjoy what promises to be a great production from a stellar team of theatre folk who really do care..
July 7th to 31st Tues-Sat at 7:30pm
Tuesday 7th – £10 Industry Tickets (Bring proof of Equity/TMA/ITC or similar with your ticket – max. 2 tickets per person)
Wednesday 8th -‘Pay-What-You-Can’ (maximum 2 tickets per person)
Sat and Sun at 2pm
Tickets: Big Cat: £15.00 (Over 16)
Cub: £12.00 (Under 16)
Wolf-Pack: £50.00 (Family of Four)
For group (10+) discounts and details email: tickets@emporiumbrighton.com
