I must admit to being very partial to a bit of pantomime at Christmas. Good pantos have a tremendous amount of feel-good factor and bonhomie. I’m quite happy if kids are jumping up and down in front of me and for normal theatre etiquette to go out the window. A good pantomime will purge the Scrooge from us all. I guess it takes us back to a lost age, our lost childhood where, for many, a pantomime marked an important first visit to a theatre.
But traditional pantomimes are not the only Christmas shows in town. Although the other alternatives dispense with the dame, the Good Fairy, Baron Hard-up and a slosh scene they still manage to conjure up all the magic and, more importantly, all the fun. The RSC’s Wendy and Peter Pan at Stratford has all that and a lot of thrills and drama as well – not to mention some ‘issues’.
The story of Peter Pan is essentially about the reconciliation of loss but this production very much emphasises the issues of equality as well. The first production of the show opened in 1904, just one year after Emmeline Pankhurst had founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, so equality was a topic on everyone’s lips at the time. The fact that this production is called Wendy and Peter Pan rather than just the usual Peter Pan is significant.
This was an era when everything was male oriented, when boys were just small men and girls were … well, a bit silly and not really considered capable of joining in the pirate-defeating fun. The boys and men need looking after and the girls/women are there to do it. About this imbalance, Wendy wonders, why are there no Lost Girls? (her conclusion being that girls would be too clever to get lost in the first place). Nevertheless, the girls’ role is still subservient and indeed Wendy is allocated the job of being mother to all the Lost Boys when she arrives in Neverland. However, girls do have other uses, as Captain Hook is quite aware when he dresses the captive Wendy in a pretty party frock and Mr Darling euphemistically wants Mrs Darling to iron his handkerchief.
But the girls aren’t having this. Wendy, Tinkerbell and Tiger-Lily join forces to defeat the pirates and Mrs Darling gets herself a little part-time job. Admittedly, Mr Darling thinks this is a good idea but you can’t help thinking that he is considering the benefits to himself from such a move.
However, and needless to say, Wendy and Peter Pan is a kid’s show with all the above being sneaked in under the radar in the hope and expectation that some of it would register with the young minds.
Tinkerbell is a ‘don’t mess with me’ heavyweight fairy who easily holds her own with the Lost Boys and the right-on Tiger-Lily don’t take no nonsense eiver. When those two team up with Wendy to become “sisters”, the boys had better watch out or they really will be lost.
This is a spectacular production with the most amazing transformation as the Lost Boys’ hide-away emerges from the stage. There was some pretty impressive flying too, though not of the traditional “invisible” Kirby type, but from in-your-face ropes, much of the time attached to a rather Heath Robinson device high above the stage. This was often more swinging than flying with the Shadows (no, not the Sixties guitar group) providing support for the low-level and under water stuff.
There were lots of little details I liked. At one stage one of the Lost Boys was seen playing with a rather messy toy from which everybody else kept well away. He thought he was playing poo sticks. He was – but had literally got the wrong end of the stick and was playing with real poo. I also loved Captain Hook’s fawning side-kick Smee (played by Paul Kemp) who dreamed of retiring with his beloved master to a cottage in the country and even had some swatches attached to his belt so as to plan the colour scheme. Arthur Kyeyune provided an unusual and menacing Crocodile dressed in a top-hat and flowing frock coat as he slithered around using the splits as his means of motion. Mariah Gale provided a very sensible and grown-up (well, she was grown-up, but you know what I mean) Wendy and everyone else contributed flawless performances.
My only criticism was that the show was maybe a bit too long. In fact it was much too long and bearing in mind most of the audience are small kids this can lead to a lot of fidgeting. Twenty minutes shorter and I would not be able to fault it. Good stuff and a nice change from Widow Twanky. ★★★★☆ Michael Hasted 4th December 2015
Photos by Manuel Harlan
