Life of Pi stage show with life-size tiger puppet launches year-long tour in Sheffield

LIfe Of Pi opens its UK tour at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre on August 28 where it runs until September 16, 2023 (photo: Evan Zimmerman)

The tour opens at the Lyceum Theatre on August 29 where it will run until September 16, 2023. It’s fitting that the year-long run of shows in the UK and Ireland launches in Sheffield because Life of Pi first opened in the city’s Crucible Theatre in 2019.

In the four years since its premiere, Lolita Chakrabati’s adaptation of the best-selling book has won five Olivier Awards during a West End run. As well as Best New Play, and Best Actor for Hiran Abeysekera (the original Pi); in an historic first for the Olivier Awards – the seven performers who puppeteer the Tiger ‘Richard Parker’ were collectively awarded Best Actor in a Supporting Role.The production also picked up awards for set and lighting design.

Life of Pi is now up for five Tony Awards following its transfer to Broadway in March 2023.

Divesh Subaskaran will make his professional debut in the central role of Pi during the UK tour which takes in 30 venues including Nottingham Theatre Royal from April 15-20, 2024.

Based on one of award-winning writer Yann Martel’s best-loved works of fiction – winner of the ManBooker Prize, selling more than 15 million copies worldwide –Life of Pi is a breath-taking new theatrical adaptation of an epic journey of endurance and hope. The show is recommended viewing for 8+ years.After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, there are five survivors stranded on a single lifeboat–a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, a sixteen year-old boy and a 450lb Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive?

Yann Martel’s works include The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios(1993), Self (1996), We Ate the Children Last (2004), Beatrice and Virgil (2010) – a New York Times bestseller and a Financial Times best book, 101 Letters to a Prime Minister(2012) – a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada; and The High Mountains of Portugal (2016).

Tickets are priced from £15; book online at www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk