The summer term production of ‘Jungle Book Kids’ at saltash.net community school proved itself to be a very popular show with people of all ages. Tickets sold out quickly for all three nights and audience members ranged from babes in arms to proud grannies and granddads.
The lasting appeal of the 1967 Disney film meant that many of the songs in the show were well known to the audience, but there were some surprising and delightful ‘twists’ in the direction by teacher of Drama, Matt Oakes, and teacher of Music, Chris Eastman, not least the rousing final number of ‘When I Grow Up’ taken from a more recent musical, ‘Matilda’.
For the third year running, children from saltash.net’s partner primary schools were invited to take part in the combined key stage 2 and key stage 3 production. Pupils from Landulph, St Stephens, Burraton, Brunel, Weston Mill, Sir Robert Geffery’s and Bishop Cornish joined students from years 7, 8 and 9 at saltash.net to present a show which was energetic, humorous and extremely entertaining overall.
Excelling in the lead roles were Emily Horsham as Baloo, Olivia Higman as Bagheera, Bethan Hall as Shere Khan, Molly Banks as King Louie, Rachel Jonas as Mowgli, and Ellie Kevern as Kaa the snake. They were very ably supported by the other 50 cast and chorus members.
Matt Oakes said, “We’ve had great fun working on the show. We run this annual project to allow our younger students to experience musical theatre but also to act as ambassadors to the students from our partner Primary Schools. It acts as an excellent opportunity for primary students to see our school, meet older students, meet staff and see the outstanding ethos we have at saltash.net. We have a great team who work on the production and seeing the cast perform certainly makes all the hard work worth it.”
A Year 9 student said, ‘Thank you so much everything. I’ve done all of the shows and I’m really going to miss being a part of the junior company. I’ve gained confidence and met loads of friends.’
A parent of a Year 6 child wrote into the school saying, “Just a quick note to say once again how much we appreciate you and your team’s efforts in producing such a fab Jungle Book performance, and allowing Hannah to be part of it. She loved joining in the production and we’re sure it’s helped her confidence in performing.”