Peter Pan the Musical
Information
- Date
- 18th December 2015
- Society
- Campaign Amateur Theatre
- Venue
- City of Ely College
- Type of Production
- Musical
- Director
- Becky Green
- Musical Director
- Mark A Checkley
- Choreographer
- Steph Hogger/Becky Green
Campaign Amateur Theatre’s choice for a Christmas production this year was the musical version of Peter Pan, J.M.Barrie’s well known magical tale about a boy who doesn’t want to grow up. The show has some great (though slightly repetitive) music and lyrics by Piers Chater-Robinson. The problem I have with this script is that it doesn’t really fit into a defined genre. It is billed as a musical but it seems to border on panto at times. Some of the dialogue too comes over as rather old fashioned.
The story is a famous one. On a visit to the home of the Darling family to recover his shadow, Peter Pan invites the Darling children Wendy, Michael and John to fly off into the night with him to ‘Never-Never Land’ to meet his group of ‘lost boys’ where they get mixed up in his adventures with Pirates, Indians and even a crocodile.
It is always difficult to transfer famous and well-known books to the stage and I felt the opening scene was particularly slow and somewhat over-written. This was a shame as Mr and Mrs Darling (Steve Barker and Holly Baumber) worked hard to get things off the ground.
The majority of the large cast involved in this show were young people (some very young) who all did well, although there was a tendency to gabble. The commitment these young actors put into their songs and stage movement though was most commendable.
Among the younger principle actors we enjoyed good performances from Samuel Laws (John) and Thomas Ashton (Michael) and a very strong performance indeed from Charlotte Etherington (Wendy) who has a very pleasant singing voice too.
The performance by Matthew Buzer as Peter Pan, was good and confident although it fluctuated a bit on the opening night. However he had no problem interacting with the audience when necessary and proved there is more than one way to achieve a standing ovation by getting us all on our feet clapping hands to help save Tinkerbell (expertly played by Anna Kindleysides) for You Gotta Believe (in fairies). Nicely done!
The Lost Boys (although not all of them were boys) were good and all knew what they needed to do and did it.. There was a good sense of teamwork here. The singing too was of a good standard.
The Indians did not feature heavily in this script but when they did they were fine. I particularly enjoyed their dance and Braves to War was done with enthusiasm.
Of course, everyone’s favourite villain is Captain Hook and in this role Steve Barker commanded the stage. He has a great voice too. I don’t think the script is too kind to the pirates. His pirate band should either be stupid or scary but although there was a good performance from Peter Crussell (Smee) and Martin Kemp (Starkey) who worked hard on the stupid front, the script didn’t allow them too much scope for added humour.
Although once or twice the music underscoring the dialogue took over, Musical Director Mark Checkley had done a first-rate job both in rehearsal and with the band Mark Thomson(Drums) Ben Nunn (Guitar) throughout the performance.
As always Stephanie Hogger assisted by Becky Green ensured the choreography was pitched to accommodate the skills of all involved and it was well executed.
The lighting design was exceptional. Congratulations on the correct use of the strobe lighting. There is a skill in performing with the strobe and it isn’t always done as well as this cast did it.
One or two of the sound cues were late (mainly the crocodile) and I was not too convinced about the sound used for Tinkerbell, I would liked to have heard it much more tinkly.
The costumes were marvellous and the clever flying puppets and the huge crocodile brought the biggest reactions of the evening.
The various settings were great and there was good use of levels. I particularly liked the way Peter managed to appear on the roof of the house. Excellent work was carried out by the hardworking stage crew as they transformed the Darlings’ house to Neverland and then to the pirate ship. There were a few technical problems but this was the first performance so any minor blips can possibly be forgiven.
Director Becky Green put her own little touches on the script to add some nice humorous moments and clearly much thought had gone into everything. Shows such as this do not just happen, there are many hours of hard work in each area, with everyone working as a team, for it to be successful. Well done all who were involved., the opening night audience loved it and it was good to revisit this famous story.
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