Madagascar Live
Nottingham Capital FM Arena
UK tour ends 10 March 2013
Reviewed by Amanda Whittam
Madagascar was one of the first films that my twin girls enjoyed aged about 2 and a half. They are now just over 3, so we were delighted to be going to review Madagascar Live at Nottingham’s Capital FM Arena. We chose to go to the 11am showing so that we could make the most of a full day out.
It took us about 40 minutes to get there and the girls were shouting "are we nearly there yet" for most of the way, they were so excited. We hadn't been there before so we followed our sat nav using the details from the website. The signposting around the arena wasn't great and we hadn't realised that the arena didn't have its own car park, but we managed to park fairly nearby in a private car park which cost £3.
The entrance hall to the arena was busy but there were plenty of clearly uniformed staff to direct me to the box office – a porta cabin outside the entrance. The staff were very helpful and quickly provided me with my tickets so we could get back inside. There were the usual merchandise stalls selling programmes (£10), flashing wands (£5), badges, mugs, t-shirts and back packs, all fairly steeply priced so we didn't buy anything. We had our tickets scanned and were given cardboard Lima eye masks for the girls and directed to the correct doorway. On the way we stopped at the toilets, which were clean and bright, and also for a much needed coffee (£2 each). On entering the theatre hall we were shown to our seats and had a great view of the huge screen and stage. The African style music was really catchy and the hall was buzzing with excitement, as were my girls. There were staff walking amongst the audience selling ice cream, candy floss and popcorn which added to the atmosphere, we had some candy floss (£2.50) – the first time my girls had tried it (of course they loved it!).
The show started with singing and dancing, introducing Marty, Gloria, Melman and Alex in the zoo. The costumes were amazing and the sets showed scenes almost identical to the film. The acting was fantastic, we almost forgot that they weren't actually animals on the stage! My girls particularly enjoyed the naughty penguins as they escaped from the zoo and entered the New York subway (really clever set design to show the animals travelling to Times Square before being recaptured). The monkeys were cleverly incorporated into the show as puppets from the side of the stage, and the girls really loved spotting them appearing.
The next set showed the animals in their crates on the ship on the way to Africa, which captured the film perfectly. The first half ended with the 'naughty' penguins ambushing the Captain and crew, taking over the ship and tipping the animal crates overboard, heading towards Madagascar.
The first half lasted about 50 minutes and the interval about 20 minutes, which was a bit long to keep 3 year olds entertained for, but the food sellers were back amongst the audience and there was enough going on to distract them. The monkey came on stage during the interval reminding children to put their lima masks on for the second half, which was entertaining.
The second half saw the animals meeting the Limas and King Julien and the audience were treated to a rendition of 'move it, move it' which was great fun and got the audience dancing along. My daughters found it harder to concentrate in the second half and there was more of a chatting 'buzz' around the arena, suggesting that a few other younger ones were the same, but a few little snacks (which we had taken with us) soon helped that. They were amused at the scenes where Alex the lion was hungry, dreaming of steaks and ended up biting Marty the zebra on the bum. The production ended with a cast rendition of 'move it, move it' with King Julien coming out into the audience to get everyone dancing, we all really enjoyed singing and dancing and my girls are still doing the dance moves two days later!
I would thoroughly recommend the production to anyone with children aged 3 plus, particularly if they are familiar with the film, as the likeness of the stage sets and characters was amazing. We had a great day out and it was a real treat for my daughters that I know they will talk about for ages – I better get used to having the film on repeat now too!
Venue 3/5 (bad signposting and parking!) Production 5/5 (loved it!)
Rating: 5/5 
Fore more information, find a venue or boook tickets visit www.madlive.co.uk
