Four star review of Life of Pi at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield

It’s four years since Life of Pi was first staged, to great critical acclaim, at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre. Since then, Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2002 Booker Prize-winning novel has conquered the West End and Broadway, garnering awards (five Oliviers, three Tonys) along the way.

Now, this darkly philosophical exploration of the nature of belief, sacrifice and the human-animal bond has returned to Sheffield at the start of a year-long nationwide tour. And the tiger still burns very, very bright. Nick Barnes’ and Finn Caldwell’s life-size puppets are as much of a triumph as the host of imagination-capturing visual effects by designers Tim Hatley, Andrzej Goulding and Tim Lutkin. From the moment the 17-year-old Pi begins his story with “Once upon a time…”, the audience is transported to a struggle-for-survival world of violent storms and shipwrecks and brutal beasts who prowl, canter and leap around the stage.

None is more dangerous than ‘Richard Parker’, the curiously-named Bengal tiger that redefines words like slink and stealth and William Blake’s ‘fearful symmetry’. Along with a terrifying hyena, an orange orangutan and an injured zebra, it’s the sole animal survivor when the freight ship transporting them, Pi’s family and their zoo from India to Canada, sinks in the Pacific Ocean.

We first see the now-orphaned Pi (Divesh Subaskaran, making an assured, astonishingly agile professional debut) in a Mexican hospital bed, telling two government representatives how he has survived 227 days at sea on a lifeboat. The sterile grey of the set is in stark contrast to the vibrant colours of the fluttering butterflies and iridescent fish that inhabit the stage as he recalls his perilous journey.

Directed by Max Webster, the puppeteers work deftly, bending, twisting, growling and yelping their way around the stage, bringing their nightmarish creatures to life – and death. Because this is no cosy children’s tale. It’s a very physical story of endurance, resilience and survival – even if that survival depends on Pi, a Hindu vegetarian, killing a sentient being, a turtle, and feasting on its bleeding innards.

There are times when the production becomes shrill, the actors shouty, especially in the storm scenes, where words disappear into the wind. There’s a danger then of it becoming ‘full of sound and fury signifying nothing’. But the staging and the puppetry always rescue it.

And ‘Richard Parker’ is wonderful.

To September 16, then touring, including to Bradford in November, Leeds in January 2024.