The comedian and musician’s #zoologicalsociety is a concept album featuring Jason Manford as a depressed monkey and Lucie Jones as a pregnant penguin
Lions, giraffes and monkeys brought Julie Taymor a roaring stage hit but a new “musical for grownups” adds a sweary penguin and some humping pandas to The Lion King’s menagerie. Created by composer and comedian Vikki Stone, #zoologicalsociety is sung by the animals who are observed by “upright furless watchers” day to day in a zoo. (“Why do they come?” they wonder. “We’re honestly not that much fun!”)
The concept album, released online this month, features Jason Manford as a depressed monkey, Arthur Darvill and Louise Dearman as the bashfully mating pandas, Tyrone Huntley as an exasperated lion, and Natasha Barnes and Stone herself as gossipy giraffes. There’s a military chorus of meerkats, a raucous simian duet and a tearjerking showstopper with Lucie Jones playing a pregnant penguin whose mate has cleared off. The musical is a digital commission by the Royal & Derngate theatre in Northampton and the album was always intended to be released before the show is fully staged. (That production may well now be delayed by the coronavirus outbreak that has closed theatres around the world.)
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