Thursday, May 9

Tag: Ralph Birtwell

Life of Pi – Hull New Theatre
Yorkshire & Humber

Life of Pi – Hull New Theatre

I was almost lost for words - written and vocal - after watching Life of Pi at the Hull New Theatre on Tuesday night. Not a good state for a reviewer to be in. Faced with the question “How do I describe perfection?”, back home, I made myself a coffee, opened a bag of chocolate buttons and got my brain into gear. Life of Pi tells the story of 17-year-old Indian boy, Pi Patel, who, after political disruptions in his homeland, seeks out a new life in Canada, with his family. However, the Tsimtsum, the cargo ship they embark upon, sinks in a terrible Pacific Ocean storm, leaving Pi stranded on a small lifeboat with a hyena, zebra, orangutan and a Bengal tiger - animals being transported from his family’s zoo. Pi (the amazing Divesh Subaskaran) loses his family - mother (Goldy Nota...
Life of Pi – Leeds Grand Theatre
Yorkshire & Humber

Life of Pi – Leeds Grand Theatre

Life of Pi is one of those blockbuster books that seemed impossible to make work on stage, but Lolita Chakrabarti’s pacey adaptation keeps in Jann Martel’s mediation on the power of faith along with all the dramatic set pieces that make it such a good yarn. It opens in a Mexican hospital room as an Indian teenager Pi recounts his 200 plus day battle for survival after the ship transporting his father’s zoo animals to a new home in Canada goes down in the Pacific.  According to Pi he shared his life raft and battle to live with a 200 pound Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker…or did he? Chakrabarti doesn’t flinch from the spiritual nature of Mantel’s text that namechecks most of the major religions, but cleverly weaves in the darker side of our psyche in a fable that is much about...