LIFE OF PI UK TOUR PRESS LAUNCH
Written by Harry.
This summer, Lolita Chakrabarti’s award-winning production Life of Pi kicks off its 2023/24 UK tour in Sheffield and were invited to celebrate!
Yann Martel’s novel tells the story after a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. Five survivors are stranded on a single lifeboat; a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a sixteen-year-old boy and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?
The show originally was first shown on the Crucible stage in Sheffield back in 2019. It went onto a successful run in London’s West End and recently made its way onto Broadway too!
The show is going to be a hit with audiences up and down the country, after seeing just a glimpse of what audiences can expect. This show has something for everyone. It's a bit of theatre magic, allow yourself to be immersed in a world full of amazing visuals from video projection and puppetry.
We were treated to a little look at Richard Parker the tiger. I think what amazed me was the skill and technique the performers had in bringing this creature to life. All three kept together amazingly well and created the noises all by themselves which was so impressive to see. During the tour, the role of the tiger (Richard Parker) will be alternated between 8 performers instead of 6, as stated in the Q&A session.
On the panel for the Q&A talk was Romina Hytten, Tom Stacy & Daisy Amelia Franks with producer Simon Fridman.
Something that was talked about in the Q&A session was how much goes into the puppetry and creation of Richard Parker and the other animals in the show. With Romina Hytten playing two parts of the tiger (hind and tiger heart) that she would get all the puppeteers to research an animal and the group would research a particular animal, another interesting thing that was said during the day, sometimes by the performers, was how they had to create new sounds for some animals.
Producer Simon Friend had also mentioned that the development of the show started way back in 2015 and it was what the team wanted to do. Technology at the time made it difficult to do the show, but now he thinks it will do really well in a proscenium arch theatre like the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield. A funny thing he said was that once he had someone say that they actually had to check their feet to see if they weren't actually wet due to the projection of the water, this made me think on how i could describe the show would be theatre in 4DX.
It does sound that the creative team of the show are ready to adapt the hit show for the tour and one thing that was really in force was that all three puppeteers said that they’ve got the story and the audience can fill the gaps with basically there imagination when seeing the costumes, set, lighting etc.
The three sounded enthusiastic and passionate and also ready to get started rehearsals next month. They mentioned that the tiger isn’t just a puppet when rehearsing scenes they always call the tiger Richard Parker, this shows that the three have really moulded into the role and are really comfortable and confident in each other to get their acting skills well placed in creation and the performance of Richard Parker.
I do feel that the show has an amazing appeal to it, the way this show looks with it’s hand sculpted puppets, lighting and sound design plus adding video projection i think it could be a show for non-theatre goers to see to experience the feeling of what i felt watching the trailer and that was goosebumps.
The Life of Pi tour opens in August, all tour information is available here.
