News bulletins announce forest fires in northern France, Google shutting down its servers, martial law declared. Water levels are rising: seek higher ground. Climate catastrophe is the backdrop for Akram Khan’s cautionary reimagining of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book.
Mowgli and her family are left clinging to a raft before she’s tossed into the sea and found by animals who have taken over abandoned land – elephants and giraffes escaped from zoos; lab monkeys freed from testing facilities. This opening is beautifully rendered in line-drawn animation by Yeast Culture (who memorably worked on Khan’s Desh). You see the top of the Eiffel Tower peeking out from choppy waters – but there’s no escaping the bleakness of the theme and a certain despondency pervades even in the show’s more comic moments.
