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The Life of Pi is truly breath-taking, It is visually phenomenal. It is written and directed and executed wonderfully. I felt distressed. I felt uncomfortable. I was moved. Incredible.

This is physical theatre and puppetry in one of its finest forms. If you’re after a jaw-dropping visually appealing show, this is for you.

Life of Pi follows the main character Piscine Patel who grows up in a zoo. As the political turmoil begins, they are driven out of their home in Pondicherry, India and make the voyage to Canada to start a new. When disaster strikes, it is just Pi and Richard Parker, his enemy Bengal tiger for company aboard a lifeboat for 227 days.

The show begins with Pi preparing to tell his story to the Japanese Minisry of Transport and a Canadian representative to investigate what happened and close the case of why this ship sank. I think we were less than 2 minutes in when the first ‘aww’ echoed around Curve theatre as Pi offers a boiled sweet to the Canadian, from beneath the bed, but still refuses to talk.

And then… he talks.

And the show comes to life.

And the stage transforms.

It’s a mesmerising moment, watching this grey hospital room transform into a bustling and colourful zoo complete with enclosures changing with the aid of metal bars and animal puppetry who move with such grace and elegance and poise that I refuse to believe they aren’t real. I often think about the magical years of theatre being for young children, and above that we escape for a little while but we never fully believe when it’s animals, and magic. But, with Life of Pi… I believed.

I felt heartbreak within the first few moments when we see a heart-breaking lesson of the animal kingdom. We see meerkats peeking through cages, we see a zebra come charging through and we see the most adorable goat, Buckingham. Puppet designers Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes have made a super quality of puppets, combined with a skilful cast who brought them to life.

Side note: can we also please take a moment to appreciate the absolute incredible way that he is Pi and the goat is Buckingham and that becomes the Buckingham Pi theorem where it suggests altering the way we apply core principles. THE SACRIFICE WAS A LITERAL SCIENTIFIC THEOREM. Amazing.

Now, I have never watched Life of Pi, or read the massively successful novel but this theatre show has made me want to,

Divesh Subaskaran was engaging as Pi and I loved Chand Martinez as Mamaji. I felt we learnt enough about the rest of the cast as secondary characters, but the true spotlight is on Pi and Robert Parker, and bringing the rest of the puppets to life. I also have to mention how ferocious Anthony Antunes was as the tiger hind and the cook!

There were lots of stand-out moments in the show, but some little visual delights I enjoyed was seeing the cast take Pi’s biscuit wrappers and then join them together so the lighting could perfectly write the number of days at sea on it, the subtle changing of ‘no entry’ and ‘meerkats’ etc above the door which took me a while to realise was lighting rather than actually there. The beauty of the butterflies dancing. The astounding realistic movements of the tiger swimming. The rain effects. The one man lift! The rapid stage changes, and the beautifully lit up starry sky.

Life of Pi is stage magic and a visually impressive show from start to finish. It’s philosophical. It’s powerful. It’s an epic journey of endurance and hope.

Warning: there are depictions of cannibalism and the animal kingdom – with red ribbons representing blood and guts this is complete with authentic sound effects.

On at Curve until 17th March.