REVIEW: Disney’s THE LION KING Returns To Sydney To Delight A New Generation With Julie Taymor’s Award Winning Production

Thursday 23rd April 2026, 7pm, Capitol Theatre Sydney

Almost 30 years since it’s Broadway premier in 1997, THE LION KING still brings gasps of awe as Julie Taymor’s musical theatre adaptation of Walt Disney Animation’s 1994 film returns to the Sydney stage.  The pairing of Elton John and Tim Rice’s music, with additions from Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Hans Zimmer and Taymor, with Taymor’s reimagining of the story about the coming of age of a lion cub that seeks to separate the stage show from the cinema animation delivers a visually stunning work that honours the story’s ‘homeland’ and engages different theatre artforms.

Generally the stage adaptation retains the plot points of the animation whereby the story follows the new heir to the Pride Lands as Simba grows from a mischievous cub that is easily manipulated by his uncle Scar, to running away in shame and finding new friends with fellow outcasts Timon and Pumbaa, to returning to defeat his evil uncle and restoring harmony in the Pride Lands.  While the animation runs for 88 minutes, Taymor’s adaptation provides more depth to the characters and their evolution to make the work a 150 minute two act performance, including at 20 minute interval.  As noted in the program, Taymor also shifted the gender balance, heavily focused on the male characters in the animation, to present narrator and spiritual healer Rafiki as a female mandrill, along with raising the profile of the lionesses which do more of the hunting for a lion pride. 

While a story that is based purely on animals is ‘easily’ expressed via animation, bringing it to stage poses challenges which Julie Taymor, who served as both concept creator, director, costume design, and mask and puppet design, shared with co-designer Michael Curry, was perfectly suited to overcoming.  Taymor brings her experience with various puppetry styles, from black and white shadow puppets, coloured Motekar shadow puppets, rod puppets, carnival puppets and Bunraku performer worn puppets, to ensure that there is magic and variety in the work while still expressing that there are humans delivering the performance.  While Taymor retains the story and connections to the source material in the design of Mufasa’s majordomo, Zazu (Benn Welford), a mouthy hornbill, and Simba’s friends, meerkat Timon (Jamie McGregor), and warthog Pumbaa (Rutene Spooner), more creative expression is used for the rest of the characters.  There are also connections with the source material through the choice to have some performers honour the actors that provided the voices for the animation while other characters are presented with that actors natural voice, leading to a delightfully New Zealand/Samoan sounding Mufasa to reinforce the diversity in casting that has engaged Australian and New Zealand performers alongside performers from South Africa. 

The design elements are what make this work so memorable.  Yes there is the score which includes Elton John and Tim Rice’s feature songs, of which Can You Feel the Love Tonight won The Academy Award Best Original Song and Circle of Life and Hakuna Matata were also nominated in the same category that year, but for the night reviewed, the sound balances were such that many of the lead vocals did not reach the centre of the auditorium with the expected gravity one would expect and for anyone unfamiliar with the songs, the lyrics could easily be missed.

The standout performances come from Benn Welford as Zazu, Daniel Frederiksen as Scar, Jamie McGregor as Timon, Rutene Spooner as Pumbaa and Ezra Williams, Winston Hillyer and Mat Verevis as Hyena comedy trio Shenzi, Banzai and Ed,  These performers all lent in heavily to the comedy and drama of their roles with an understanding of the emotional connection so, even in the most absurd moments, there was an intuition underlying the expression.   They all expressed perfect comic timing and understanding of how to echo the emotion shown by the puppet and the performer with Welford’s slow turn of disbelief when Zazu believes he has been sacked being absolutely priceless. 

The stage musical of Disney’s THE LION KING remains as a special piece of theatre that is classical in its avoidance of contemporary temptation to use computer animated backdrops and its inventiveness to draw on a range of puppetry disciplines in contemporary theatre.  The magic of the design paired with the modern take on the Shakespearean struggle for power, the story being a loose adaptation of Hamlet, makes for a family friendly piece of theatre that will also keep adults in awe of how a theatre is turned into a savannah filled with animals of all sizes. 

Disney's THE LION KING | Australia

Photos: Daniel Boud

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