PETER PAN till 8 January
Newark
PETER PAN: David Vickers and Richard Chandler [adapters]
Palace Theatre Newark: Tkts 01636 655755 www.palacenewark.com
Runs: 2h 20m: one interval: till 8th Jan
Performance times: 10am, 1.30pm, 2.30pm, 5.30pm and 7.00pm various days. No performances 25th Dec, 31st Dec and 1st Jan
Signed Performance 6th Jan
Review: Alan Geary: 14 December 2005
There’s a strong touch of Edwardian innocence about this non-PC piece of entertainment.
Complete with clap-along music-hall numbers like Knees Up Mother Brown and Knock’d ‘Em In The Old Kent Road danced by the London sweeps, this panto, even more than last year’s Newark offering, has a strong touch of Edwardian innocence about it.
Particularly at the start, lines rhyme.
Unusually these days, there’s not much surrender to the TV here-and-now, no deference to the assumption that children are or ought to be more precocious than they were. Peter [Sophie Guariglia] is played as an adventure-loving boy rather than a figure of glittery glamour, and Wendy [Kelly Bibb] as a child almost free of adolescent angst.
Probably a fairly faithful adaptation of Barrie’s original, it’s as much a children’s play, albeit with murky depths and themes, as your trad panto. But it’s entertaining all the same. It’s as if PC had never been invented: besides some verbal argy-bargy involving knickers between Smee and Captain Hook, we get a splendid war-dance from the Red Indians. The witch-doctor’s costume is magnificent; so are the costumes in general.
A practitioner of piratical camp, Captain Hook is like a petulant child with a Kaiser Bill moustache; Barry S Evans plays him well, as he does the bumbling and pompous Mr Darling. Smee [Frazer Hines] relies less on quick-fire gag delivery than on rapport with his audience, on whom he showers sweets as well as water.
Doubtless, the tenor of the Hook-Smee routine after the interval is adjusted according to who’s in. At our matinee there was no innuendo; fortunate because most of the audience consisted of the tiniest of tots with their teachers.
Mrs Darling has a good singing and speaking voice, and the working-class Queen of the Mermaids comes complete with tail. Both are done by Joanne Shields. Children’s parts are acted well; so is a ferocious Crocodile, played, so the programme mysteriously informs us, by himself.
Possibly the most pleasing scene is when Peter and Wendy are rescued by the mermaids. Opinions about the best line will differ, but connoisseurs of corn might appreciate Smee’s quip when the dastardly Hook orders him to remove the gag from the captured Tiger-Lily’s mouth. “That’s the worst gag of the evening!”
Queen of the Mermaids/Mrs Darling: Joanne Shields.
Captain Hook/Mr Darling: Barry S Evans.
Tinkerbell: Anna Ludford.
Nana the Dog: Jennie Alldis/Emma Sivakumaram.
John Darling: Tom O’Connell.
Michael Darling: Jack Bews/Sebastian Thorpe.
Tiger Lily/Lisa the Maid: Anna Conway.
Wendy Darling: Kelly Bibb.
Peter Pan: Sophie Guariglia.
Smee: Frazer Hines.
Tootles: James Harvey/Callum Grady.
Slightly: Jonathan Derbyshire/Marcus Davies/Aaron Mayes.
Curley: William Jones/Ryan Price.
First Twin: Robin Kear/Alex George.
Second Twin: Henry Longstaff/Joel Foster.
Nibs: Nicholas Moore/Guy Mander.
Gentleman Starkey: David Thomas Stinson.
Big Chief Little Panther/Jukes: Tim Barton.
Cecco: Daniel Thomas Oates.
Noodles: Liam Lakin.
Cookson: Tom Kinder.
Crocodile: Himself.
Directors: David Vickers/Richard Chandler.
Design/Costumes: Extravaganza Productions.
Musical Director: Steve Allen.
Choreographer: Michelle Cox.
2005-12-15 16:06:24