Panchatantra dazzles Brits
The show has had rave reviews in UK and has been praised for its costumes and songs.
Inspired by fascinating and much loved stories from folklore, such as Aesop's Fables and Jataka Tales, Panchatantra, an Asian musical for children, has been dazzling and enchanting audiences, both young and not so young, all over Britain ever since it opened last month. It had already had a successful tour in India before being brought to the UK.
The show runs for some ninety minutes and is packed full of dynamic dance, songs and comedy, with seven actors playing no less than thirty-five parts.
The producer of the musical is Ashvin Gidwani, who describes Punch-A-Tantra as: "a wonderful tale about never losing your faith in your dreams and keeping the child in you alive".
The show has had rave reviews in Britain and has been praised for its amazing costumes, catchy songs and wild comedy. The production is directed by Karla Singh, who explains what the show is all about: "It is a story about a father's dissatisfaction with his child's interest in story books. The father throws away one of his son's books, but by a strange quirk he finds himself in the land of stories and meets animals along the way who tell him he must find the book to save the forest and get back home. There are lessons woven into the main story about loyalty, the value of friendship, honesty and other moral values."
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| The Panchatantra show is packed full of dance, songs and comedy |
And of course it isn't giving anything away to say that the show has a happy ending: the father, Varun, sees the error of his ways (surprise, surprise) and becomes a convert to the magic of stories (hurrah, hurrah).
The musical will not only be staged in Britain - the UK is only a small part of what is, in effect, a world tour. So, after the completion of its run in Britain, the caravan moves on to Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Spain.
After that little lot, the production travels much much further, to the Middle East, Australia, the USA and Canada. There are also plans to include South Africa in the tour, as well as Sri Lanka.
So how does the producer, and presumably the director and cast, feel about all this travel away from India? Ashvin Gidwani speaks for the whole team when he says: "We all love performing but India is home. We do miss our families but the play keeps us so busy that this trip has become really enjoyable and not just work".
