Running Wild to be staged at Wolverhampton theatre

From June 6-10 at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre, Children’s Touring Partnership will be performing Running Wild, a compelling tale based on the real experiences of youngster Amber Owen, who was on holiday with her family in Phuket in 2004 when the tsunami hit. It depicts Amber’s survival, as the elephant she was riding on the beach that fateful day sensed the disaster and pulled her away from the receding sea water, saving her life.

Following a similar style to War Horse with life-sized animal puppets, Running Wild is a feast for the eyes, transporting audiences to the heart of the jungle where they meet gorillas, tigers, a crocodile and even huge fish, as well as the heroine of the piece – Oona the elephant.

Joey, the beautiful horse puppet at the centre of War Horse is so realistic that audience members actually reached out and stroked him as he wanders along the theatre aisle and Oona has the same effect. She’s, of course, as far as the children are concerned, real. Powerful and captivating, you can see her emotions and sentiments in her eyes which will touch your heart. Just for the adults, her movements and body language are a perfect representation of a pachyderm, courtesy of the four skilled puppeteers who operate her.

The staging of the show is so effective that you can almost feel the humidity of the jungle and hear the exotic birds in the trees and the clever direction means that a feeling of impending danger is ever present.

The size of Oona the rlephant is immense and she is not on her own. All the puppets in the piece are completely realistic. After the first few moments of the show, the puppeteers completely disappear from your mind and what audience members are left with is the image of real animals on stage. It’s mesmerising.

As the title of the play suggests, Oona is not the only animal to look out for.

We spoke to Romina Hytten and Birmingham born Fred Davis, two talented young actors and puppeteers who operate Mani a large female orangutan.

“Mani is a beautiful, big momma orang-utan,” says Romina. “Fred and I are side by side during the show, as I hold the head and one arm and Fred has the body and the other arm as she follows Lilly through the jungle.”

But Running Wild is not just a story. It’s both thought-provoking and has an important message.

“We have had some great feedback from adult audience members in that they come to bring their children for a lovely afternoon, but at the end they are in tears and say it is the most beautiful show. It is lovely that we can create a show that is wonderful for all types of audiences and it does have very important messages,” she continues.

Being a puppeteer is a skilled art form. Fred says: “It took about three months for Romina and I to get that language that we have now with the puppet. We did a lot of research on orang-utans; looking at their physicality, walking patterns and sounds and I think what we have now is a reasonably accurate representation of how they behave in their natural habitat.”

The puppeteers are keen to go to the jungle and see the animals for real too. “I would love to see them,” says Fred. “In some ways, we have had to modify what the animals actually do, because real organ-utans for instance don’t make a lot of noise, but obviously to do the show with almost silent puppets would not work, so we have taken some artistic license.”

The roles of all the puppeteers in the show are extremely physical and animals move in such a different way to humans, of course, so levels of fitness in order to be able to bring the animals to life need to be tip-top.

“We are all literally Running Wild!” laughs Romina. “As a company, we’re all completely in it together and we have a dance captain who does warm ups with us and we have learned tricks of the puppetry trade to help us. You can’t go to the gym and get fit for this. Puppetry uses very specific muscles. You have to pick up the puppet and do it again and again to build them up. We all have this funny puppet muscle in our hands now.

The author, Michael Morpurgo, has seen the show and is happy with the results.“He has the view that his book is his book and Samuel Adamson’s stage adaptation is his creation of Running Wild,” says Fred. “And he is happy with our version and in fact said the tour version of the show has outshone every other production, which is nice.”

On the opening day of Running Wild, you need to keep your eyes peeled as Oona will be out and about in Wolverhampton to promote the show. Prepared to be amazed.

l For tickets, call 01902 429212 or visit www.grandtheatre.co.uk