A combination of seeing a musical that I had never seen before, added to the fact that it was by Stiles & Drewe (big fan here) combined with the fact that Sedos were the ones putting on said show left me very excited for my Wednesday evening theatre trip to the Bridewell to see Just So.

Just So is a musical based on the Just So stories by Rudyard Kipling and focuses on the eldest magician and following his magic, how animals ended up with their various characteristics, all wrapped up with a moral lesson. In Just So we meet the Elephant’s Child who has a yearning for knowledge and he sets out, along with the unwilling Kolokolo Bird to find Pau Amma, a giant crab whose movements in the waters have been terrorising all of the animals. Along the way they meet a Parsee Man and his Stove alongside their fellow island inhabitant, a rhino, a giraffe and zebra who are being hunted by a jaguar and a leopard and a boastful kangaroo and a dingo dog sent to chase him.

As you can probably tell from the brief synopsis there is a huge amount of parts in this show (and I haven’t even mentioned the herds of elephants and wilderbeasts, or even the dancing crocodile) and the stand out factor in this show was how perfectly cast all of the parts were. Putting together such a huge jigsaw as this is a big ask for a professional company, let alone an amateur group so plaudits to the production to the production team and casting panel for this.

Elephant’s Child was played by Dylan Evans and he captured the wide eyed innocence and optimism needed for this role brilliantly. As the audience member watching him you couldn’t help but root for his success and empathise with every lesson he learnt along the way. His travelling companion was Kate Gledhill as Kolokolo Bird and she was ying to his yang. Playing up the reluctant nature of the bird with wonderful facial expressions it made her big number ‘Wait For It’ all the more engaging as you grew to understand just what was happening under her grumpy exterior. Joe McWilliams played the eldest magician and his consistent, assured vocals were also a delight to listen to.

Freddie Tibbs as Parsee Man lit up the stage whenever he appeared, with his number delivered with a huge amount of pizzazz and Tom Outhwaite hilariously playing an inanimate object, the cooking stove, it was a double act I didn’t know I was missing until now. Add into the mix Will Hunkin’s greedy rhino with silk smooth vocals and they were a wonderful trio.

I also adored how all of the characters had very clear personalities and that the creative team weren’t afraid to allow the actors to have fun with various accents. Attention to detail was high and things such as Eleanor Leaper constantly chewing gum as if it was cud was a lovely touch.

The show was creatively directed by Glen Jordan, the cast appear from trapdoors and from within the set ensuring that there is an element of fun throughout. There has also been a lot of thought into the movement side of things, such as how can you portray humans walking as elephants or how can you portray a crocodile using a suitcase and contemporary dance. The answer is always very different but it works beautifully and leaves the audience guessing just what they might see next.

There is a wide range of styles within this show and therefore MD Adrian Hau and choreographer Sam Ferguson had to be adept in all of them. Hau makes it look (or sound) like a walk in the park (well jungle). The soloists sound consistently confident and the harmonies are rich and blend beautifully. Ferguson has similar success with the dance and utilises all of the talents within the company, from tap dance through to contemporary the dances are well thought out with the action on stage and only ever add to it rather than distract.

The set design of Just So by Dan Saunders was very clever, with the set becoming boats and storage spaces for cooking stoves as well as trees that lit up and turned into giant crab claws. This combined with the effective costume design by Geri Hutyan helped draw the audience further into this wonderful world of make believe. I was a big fan of the simplistic use of costume, from the grey mac for the elephants to the sparkly chefs attire for The Parsee Man. It gave a nod to what each person was portraying without being too literal.

Overall Just So was another Sedos success, an incredibly strong cast combined with a well executed creative vision ensured that I left the theatre grinning from ear to ear.

To find out more about Sedos and Just So you can visit their website here.

If you like this review you might also like my review of Titanic the musical, Sondheim on Sondheim and Sunshine on Leith – all by Sedos.