Jungle Book reimagined | The Stage | ★★★★★ review

A series of news reports in various languages on environmental crises reel
off as if in competition with one another to find which catastrophe is most
deserving of the limelight. Sound recordings of headlines and protests take
turns to set the scene of a dystopic, no-so-distant future.

Rather than the familiar Indian jungle of Kipling’s tale, we find ourselves in
a dystopic London, its many landmarks now decrepit and flooded,
brilliantly depicted through Adam Smith and Nick Hillel’s video and
animations. Projected onto a see-through screen framing the stage, scenes
of desperation play out. Dozens of people are adrift on rafts riding violent
waves. The curtains rise, as if to represent the sea itself, and reveal 10
silhouetted bodies, slowly crumbling towards boxes of various sizes at their
feet.

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