Peter Pan

My first visit to this company who have recently joined NODA,and a very encouraging visit seeing that Harwich is obviously a town with lots of children from the ages (11-18 in this group),interested in theatre and performing.

A very enthusiastic cast with considerable talent all doing well on stage in this traditional story written by J.M.Barrie and adapted by Peter Denyer.

The main characters of Peter Pan,Captain Hook,Tinker Bell and numerous other named characters all were there as well loved and remembered roles.

ErinThomas playing Peter Pan was suitably dressed as the boy who did not want to grow up, and gave a nice feel to the character,a confident performance and good interaction with other members of the cast.

Tinker Bell played by Jodi Thomas looked lovely,danced well and her interpretation through her tinkling bells was good.No dialogue for this character, so the part depended on facial expression and movements which Jodi did very well.

Sidney Reeve as Wendy looked just right in her character and I liked her gentle manner with the lost boys in bringing them back to her home, hoping her parents woukd accept them all.

Joe Crabb doubled up as Mr Darling/Captain Hook and it was in the part of Hook that we really saw his firm delivery in dialogue and character, but always haunted by the dreaded Crocodile and the “tick-tock” which announced his arrival. I thought his scenes with Bosun Smee very good, and I liked Lily Crabb in the part of Bosn Smee with her cheeky quips here and there. Lily has a good feel for comedy and I would like to see her do more in future productions.

I could go on forever on each and every character but space will not , so well done to all the cast in other roles which were all very important to the story.

There was obviously a problem with the sound system as it was difficult to hear some of the children when speaking their lines,these things happen and hopefully will be sorted out for your next production.

I thought the sets were adequate as there was a lot of moving sets for different scenes,perhaps to speed up the cast could take off and bring on small items of props, just naturally within their characters, also I did suggest some quiet cover music always adds to the flow of changing scenes.

When any action took place on the floor of the stage it is always difficult for the audience to see what was going on unless they were sitting quite near the front of the stage.It is good to use different heights for the cast to sit or stand on which makes a good picture, and all on stage can be seen and heard, this was done quite well but try to view the vision as from the back of the hall.

I look forward to seeing the Adult company in due course and also the Junior section again.

Thank you for your welcome,it was good to meet up with people and hear more about the group.

Well done to Phil and Caroline for their work with the children and the show.

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