The Jungle Book - A Musical Tale

Barossa Arts and Convention Centre

Wednesday 5th August 11:00am

Well as promised, I bought tickets to take my son to see the Jungle Book show and I must say this time I was quite disappointed. Nothing wrong with the theatre, I am still impressed by that, but the performance itself was a bit of a let down.

When I saw Jungle book advertised, my thought was that it would contain most of the characters from the original story by Rudyard Kipling. Instead we got three characters Baloo the Bear, Mowgli, and Tabaqui the Jackal. There was no Bagheera the panther, the tiger Shere Khan or snakes monkeys or other characters of any sort.

The play told the story of Mowgli returning to the jungle from the city to meet up with Baloo who in turn wanted to go to the city to becoming a singing bear tourist attraction. I am sorry, but the scripting of Baloo was for him to try and be funny and sing and make the children laugh, but my experience was that they were all just bored and took more joy from the Jackal that only made brief appearances.

Most of the children that attended the performance were from school excursions from the local schools in the area, and really by the end of the performance the teachers were trying to control the children who were starting to become roudy. The highlight for most of the kids was when Mowgli threw out into the audience some stuffed snakes with the threat of them being venomous - the down point was the kids having to give them back as quick as they came.

Some may have enjoyed this show, but on this occasion, I am sorry to say it was money for a ticket that I wish I did not bother to spending.