2018 Peter Pan

This is the first time in our long history that we’ve put on Peter Pan. It’s over 100 years since J.M. Barrie wrote his play about the boy who never grew up (and 64 years since the Disney cartoon came out, amazingly) but the iconic story of Peter Pan, Wendy Darling, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, is as well-known as ever

It’s therefore one of the most popular pantomimes for the professional companies, but is only rarely performed by amateurs. First there’s the problem of how to make the characters fly, and then there’s the royalty fee to be paid to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, to whom J.M Barrie donated the copyright. Great Ormond Street was the world’s first hospital for children, and still leads the world, thanks to the patronage of people like Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens and Diana Princess of Wales. Grenoside Pantomime is proud to support the hospital with our royalties.

Good though Mr Barrie’s original story is, it completely fails to mention man-hungry Dame Cissie, custard pies, the gorilla, and Blackbeard, who is so piratical, even hardened pirates cower! We are proud to be able to add these back into the story!

Kathy Allan and Steve Atkinson co-produced for the fourth year, with Steve again writing the script

The flying scenes were done using blue-screen technique and took a lot of work….. We first covered the walls and floor of a small room with huge sheets of blue cloth. We had a low bench, also covered in cloth, for the “flyers” to lay across. We then videoed them acting their socks off whilst walking side to side with the camera. Using iMovie on a Mac, we put this video “on top of” a video of London. Then we tell iMovie to make the blue background invisible and the actors are seen flying through London. And it worked!

Phil Wright took over the Dame’s part as Cissy Smee after Ross Crowe had stood down last year, after 28 years on stage. As well as playing the piratical Blackbeard, Steve Ledwood also enjoyed himself playing Gerald, the Darlings’ dog, explaining the plot with extravagant miming! This was the last appearances for Keeley Camilleri as Mrs Darling, Madison Camilleri as Tinkerbell and Lucy Blackburn