How 'The Jungle Book' journeyed from page to screen to stage

Rudyard Kipling's classic tales have been adapted into a Disney animated movie and are now coming to the National Theatre in an exciting new production.

Summary

• A new version of The Jungle Book premieres at the National Theatre
• Anupama Chandrasekhar adapts Rudyard Kipling's stories for stage
• Disney previously turned them into an animated musical
• This new production features puppetry and thematic exploration of belonging

This winter, Rudyard Kipling’s beloved adventure The Jungle Book becomes a thrilling new production at the National Theatre, courtesy of adaptor Anupama Chandrasekhar and director Indhu Rubasingham. This vivid world will be brought to life in inimitable theatrical fashion, including puppetry from the acclaimed Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes.

Of course, it’s not the first time that Kipling’s work has been dramatised, with numerous film versions ensuring these exciting stories have continued to capture the imagination of countless generations. Learn more about The Jungle Book’s journey from page to screen and stage.

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The Jungle Book (1894)

Kipling first published his stories in magazines and then in a book collection in 1894. They were partly inspired by his own early upbringing in Mumbai (then called Bombay); his father, John, worked there as a professor at a newly founded art school. After spending his school days in England, Kipling returned to India when he was 16 and began his writing career.

His tales in The Jungle Book are a series of fables (some with a basis in the Indian storytelling tradition), teaching life lessons via captivating yarns. The first introduces the “man-cub”, Mowgli, who is adopted and raised by a wolf pack. He is also advised by Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black panther, learning the Law of the Jungle along the way.

Mowgli’s nemesis is the terrifying tiger Shere Khan – named after an Afghan emperor, Sher Shah Suri. By defeating him, Mowgli demonstrates that he has become a man. Other characters in later stories include Kaa the python, Kotick the fur seal, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose.

The fables feature themes like abandoned children (Kipling felt he had been forsaken when his parents sent him to live with a neglectful couple in England), and obeying rules and understanding your place in society while also finding the freedom to pursue your own path. The animal characters are clever analogies for human archetypes and behaviour, and Kipling’s writing presents a particular vision of colonial England – while also weaving in humour and magic.

The Jungle Book movies

Unsurprisingly given its vibrant setting, fascinating characters and the opportunity to introduce potent themes, The Jungle Book has proven catnip to adaptors. It became a technicolour live-action film in 1942, then, most famously, a Disney musical animated movie in 1967 – with both turning the episodic tales into a linear adventure story.

The Disney version is a much more light-hearted, family-friendly version of Kipling, exploring Mowgli’s coming-of-age arc and search for home rather than focussing on the social law aspect. Significant changes include turning Baloo into a goofy sloth bear and introducing an orangutan, King Louie, and a human girl who, at the end, helps Mowgli to finally make the decision to leave the jungle and accept his place in the human village.

The movie benefits hugely from the catchy songs by The Sherman Brothers. They used jazz music as a basis, reasoning that it swings, just as characters swing through the trees. Songs include “I Wanna Be Like You”, “Trust in Me”, and “The Bare Necessities”. The film was well received and became a huge hit, making $23.8 million at the box office.

Disney also made a live-action Jungle Book in 1994, which takes a new direction by going much heavier on the human elements like romance and heroic fight scenes. There have been spin-offs of the animation as well, and, in 2016, a live-action/CGI remake of the 1967 film with motion-capture performances from the likes of Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, and Idris Elba.

The Jungle Book on stage

The story has made its way to theatre in various incarnations, including an Israeli musical in 1996, which hewed fairly closely to the Disney adaptation, and an American adaptation by Mary Zimmerman in 2013, which retained the Shermans’ songs while adding puppetry, movement, and Indian music. There was also a British musical in 2018, by Jessica Swale and Joe Stilgoe, which proved popular with family audiences and youth theatre groups.

Now The Jungle Book roars into life again at the National Theatre in a major new adaptation. As director Indhu Rubasingham explained, it’s a production that “reframes Kipling’s beloved tale”, so we can expect something different from either the original or the Disney interpretation, while honouring the spirit of Kipling’s work.

The setting is “the mangroves of the Sundarbans region” – a specific Indian ecosystem, rather than a more generic jungle setting, and one that suggests the show will strongly connect with the natural world. The production is taking place in the National’s Olivier space, which means it can operate on an epic scale and immerse audiences in this evocative environment.

Part of bringing that to life is puppetry by Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes, whose previous extraordinary shows includes War Horse, The Lorax, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Life of Pi (which also featured a memorable tiger!).

It will also be fascinating to see how adaptor Anupama Chandrasekhar, an Indian playwright whose work includes gripping modern history drama The Father and the Assassin, interprets what was originally a very colonial British text. This Jungle Book promises to explore “family, identity and belonging”, according to Rubasingham – all resonant 21st-century themes.

Hiran Abeysekera, who previously starred in The Father and the Assassin, Hamlet, and (winning an Olivier Award) Life of Pi, plays Mowgli. The talented performer anchors what could well be a thrilling and thought-provoking spectacle for audiences of all ages as the wildly beloved Jungle Book is reborn once again.

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Main photo credit: The Jungle Book at the National Theatre (Photo courtesy of the production). Inset: The Disney 1967 movie, Life of Pi (Photo courtesy of the film, by Johan Persson)