The Lion King

The Lion King continues the winning streak in Disney animation. It’s a movie of exhilarating surprises, not the least of which is its eagerness, revolutionary in the cash-cow business, to break with custom. Nobility rears it head but there’s also vulgar, violent life. For every cuddly creature, there’s an animal who’d like to bite its warm and fuzzy head off. Unlike its predecessors, The Lion King has no human characters, no Alan Mencken score and no familiar fairy tale as a source. If the original script borrows from anything, it’s Hamlet. Let’s also lionize the visual miracles by 600 Disney artisans, who bring the African landscape to stunning life from a raindrop falling gently on a leaf to a spectacular stampede of wildebeests. It’s this kind of animation artistry that raises The Lion King above the level of superior kid stuff and into the realm of a royal treat.

The Lion King celebrates its 15th anniversary at London’s Lyceum Theatre with a flurry of remarkable statistics swirling around it. This is the highest-grossing stage show in history, having already grossed some £3.8 billion globally – more than the previous record-holder Phantom of the Opera. Or, to place it in a broader context, more than the combined global revenues of the six most popular Harry Potter films. But does The Lion King still speak to our times? Has it retained its power and visual majesty over the years, or is it now more of an obligatory staging post for foreign tourists to London? Ingeniously, The Lion King is brought to life in a space that is impervious to trends and fashion. It will not date easily; indeed, one can imagine it still packing out the Lyceum 15 years from now.

One of Disney’s biggest hits, this excellent film has echoes of Shakespeare, bringing to mind the plots of both Richard III and Hamlet. The Lion King was not just a movie but a marketing phenomenon: This blockbuster was the highest grossing film of 1994. Of course, kids won’t know, or care about that; they’ll just be enthralled by the memorable songs and great characters. It’s the story of Simba, a lion cub, who just can’t wait to be king. But his evil Uncle Scar, who is bitterly jealous of Simba’s father Mufasa, also wants to be king, so he arranges for Mufasa to be killed in a stampede and makes Simba think he’s responsible. The scene in which Simba’s father, Mufasa, is trampled to death, is both sad and genuinely scary. But the lesson Simba learns – that you have to stand up to your problems instead of running away from them – is a solid one.

The Lion King is a musical adapted from the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King. It is the winner of six 1998 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and is currently the third-longest-running Broadway musical of all time. At the start of The Lion King, Broadway director Julie Taymor creates a pageant that instantly transports the audience to a gorgeous world of African imagination, unlike anything we’ve seen in Broadway musicals before or since. Faithfully adapted from Disney’s hugely popular 1994 animated movie, the musical is one of the best Broadway shows for kids, and there’s plenty of slapstick comedy to entertain the littles ones. The movie’s catchy score, by Elton John and Tim Rice, has been augmented with music rooted in proud African traditions, and the production is a stunning celebration of colour and movement. No wonder The Lion King has been running for nearly 20 years.