This is the first family show from inventive and dynamic theatre company Complicite, who are now 31 years old.
It is an ambitious attempt to dramatise Zizou Corder’s much-loved trilogy of novels about Charlie Ashanti, a boy who is scratched by a leopard cub in infancy and as a result can communicate with cats (of all sizes).
Charlie lives in a world tainted by pollution and dominated by sinister pharmaceuticals giant the Corporacy.
The company’s thugs have abducted his parents, who are scientists developing a cure for asthma. Charlie sets out to find them and soon becomes entangled with a travelling circus and the king of Bulgaria — as well as six lions.
The adaptation by Marcelo Dos Santos is stylish but untidy. The eco-friendly themes and concern with animal welfare are likely to resonate with younger audience members (the show is billed as being for ages eight and up).
Yet the piece’s style is rather on-the-nose, with characters narrating events instead of engaging in dialogue. A lot of storytelling has to be crammed into two hours and at times the results feel rushed.
Still, there are delicious moments, as when lengths of wet black hose are tossed into the stalls to suggest a fisherman’s freshly caught eels.
Jon Bausor’s design has a simple elegance and there is a powerful array of sound effects to evoke the magnificence of the big cats. Directors Clive Mendus and James Yeatman get nimble, energetic work from a cast of eight.
Martins Imhangbe captures Charlie’s big-hearted likeability, Lisa Kerr doubles up as an impressive trapeze artist and a linguistically gifted chameleon and Angel Lopez-Silva has an amusing degree of swagger as Charlie’s flashy, obnoxious enemy Rafi Sadler.
Until January 10 (020 7328 1000, tricycle.co.uk)
