Archbishop Sentamu dances with the cast of The Lion King at York minster
The cast of The Lion King almost ruined John Sentamu’s instillation last night as the new Archbishop of York.
Sentamu, Great Britain’s first black Archbishop, was shocked to see a troupe of people dressed as leopards, ostriches and elephants enter the church just as he was finishing a rousing speech to a packed congregation.
Fortunately, the service did not come to a halt because everyone assumed that the actors were part of the service.
Rigobert Dogg, who plays the back end of an elephant in the West-End hit, laughed, “We had just walked out of the theatre into the open air after taking our final bows. One of the hippopotami thought that he knew a shortcut to the changing rooms but he took a wrong turn and led us into the church instead. I don’t know why we all followed him. Herd mentality, I suppose.”
Mr Dogg continued, “After the Archbishop’s speech there was an awkward few seconds but Simba saved the day by telling the chimpanzees to start beating their drums and we all sung ‘Can you feel the love tonight?’, which went down a storm. After that we did another five numbers. The congregation were amazing.”
Paolo Brolliandawelli, a merchant from Venice over here for the inauguration, told The Imposter later, “The whole-ah thing-ah seemed-ah planned-ah. I-ah thought-ah the animals were-ah meant to represent-ah his-ah home-ah-land-ah.”
The Archbishop said afterwards, “Thank Gawd the cast reacted quickly. If they had stalled a few more seconds it could have gone belly-up.”