The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book was originally a novel by Rudyard Kipling and then a much-loved Disney film, which tells the story of the orphan Mowgli and how he is brought up in the jungle by animals. We all know and love Baloo the Bear, Bhageera the Panther and Akela the chief wolf. In Jess Swale's wonderfully warm-hearted and funny adaptation, this story becomes about the challenges of growing up, what it feels like to be different and how you find out who you really are.

One of the big challenges of the adaptation was the political context of the original material. The Kipling novel is steeped in colonial ideology; the Disney film draws on racist associations between monkeys and African Americans. Jess was highly aware of this right from the beginning, and her adaptation goes hard the other way, making the story into a celebration of diversity.