The Lion King was the last show in the 2022-23 Broadway Season at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, part of the Kimmel Cultural Campus. Not only is The Lion King the third longest running Broadway show ever, but it has attracted over 110 million audience members worldwide and won over 70 major theatre awards internationally. It is equally well known for its inventive sets, costumes and puppets as it is for its incredible musical numbers featuring songs by Sir Elton John and Tim Curry.

I saw The Lion King for the first time on Broadway around 20 years ago and was so curious how they were going to make the amazing sets and puppets work in new theatres every few weeks, but I was blown away. Birds “flew” from the balconies, antelopes leaped down the aisles and every spare inch of the theatre was taken advantage of. You could even watch the percussionists perform, since they set up in the box seats. The Lion King is absolutely breathtaking and mesmerising.

The Lion King features a large and impressive cast of actors, ensemble actors, ensemble dancers and specialties. The show pulls language from six indigenous African cultures throughout the show, including: Swahili, Xulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana and Congolese. The ensemble dancers also incorporate traditional dance styles from these cultures into their choreography as well as modern dance, jazz and urban dance. The strength and versatility required from the cast is awe inspiring and so much fun to watch.

The most impressive part of The Lion King is the 110+ custom puppets and masks of African Pride animals that range from lions to buzzards and everything in between. Some of my favorites, include a giraffe that is actually 12 feet high (Courtney Thomas uses stilts to achieve that height), a gazelle wheel operated by Maia Schechter and buzzards artfully orchestrated by Samaree Lawson. The elephant puppet takes four people to operate as it parades down the aisle. In fact, many of the characters are considered “specialties” and utilise more interpretive dance than traditional performance art to take on their animal personas. My favourite character of the show is Zazu the red-billed hornbill, operated by Drew Hirshfield, who has both dry wit and campy Vaudeville humour that is perfection. Rumour has it that this puppet is also the most difficult to operate, at least according to co-creator Michael Curry.

The Lion King is only in Philadelphia for a few weeks before heading out west on the rest of the North American tour. If you happen to be in one of the cities that it is coming to, I would suggest running now to buy your tickets.

Incredible and mesmerising.

***** Five stars

Reviewed by: Jamie Flowers

The Lion King plays in the Academy of Music, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia now until 10 September, with further information here.