AMATEUR PANTOMIME REVIEW: Peter Pan - The Garrick Playhouse, Altrincham.

It was opening night - anticipation and nerves were high, and the cast experienced their first taste of a highly expectant and joke-hungry audience. First night wobbles were shown a few times (unnoticed perhaps by the vast majority), but that's all part of the fun when faced with a crowd of loud and unpredictable preteens and tweenies! 

'Peter Pan' has flown in to Altricham's Garrick Theatre until the 3rd January, and their pantomime is so crammed full of jokes, puns, witty retorts and saucy one-liners it was impossible to hear and laugh at them all as they came at you in rapid-fire succession sans-cesse all evening. Some (of course) going over the children's heads but all in the very best possible taste! Although my favourite (and I hope they won't mind my repeating it here) was:

Smee: Do you know what a solar eclipse is?
Dame: No son 

(you'll need to read that out loud...!)

Anyway.. back to the show! The pantomime (as rewritten and adapted by Tom Whalley) follows the most major plot lines of the famous story, and director Joseph Meighan signposts these well. I have to be honest though, and say that there wasn't as much dancing and not as many pantomime-friendly songs as I was hoping for. The panto was very dialogue-heavy in many places despite it being a whole comedy routine in itself, but the opening of the show was particularly uninspiring sadly, and despite the audience shouting and cheering as the overture started, it took until Peter's entrance before the children were engaged again. We were given an ephemeral glimpse of the tiny light Tinkerbell, but sadly it never became part of the exposition and we were left disappointed. 

However, I am being rather picky perhaps, as indeed the show, taken as a whole, was marvellous. The principals, and even the chorus, were portrayed by majority children and young people. Captain Hook (Wayne Holt), Dame Starkey (Bill Platt), Tiger Lily (Paul Cudby) and The Chief (Martin Deighton-Brown) being the only older element in the whole show. There was therefore a lot of energy and youthful zeal omnipresent driving the show, and this paid its dividend. 

The three Darlings, Michael (Dylan Williams), John (Alfie Broughall), and Wendy (Hannah Chung), all worked excellently both together and as a part of the whole ensemble. I especially liked Chung's dogged innocence at 'doing the right thing' - very 1950's "Girls Own"! Lottie Warburton gave her all acting and singing her heart out (almost literally) as Tinkerbell, and Mason Lockwood made for a more than suitable eternally youthful and boyish leader of the gang, Peter Pan. But it was Daniel Ellis who completely stole the show as Smee. Here the character was made into the traditional 'Buttons' role in which he interacts with the audience and has the songsheet, and is the son of the panto Dame. He therefore could not be evil and work for Captain Hook (and so this was a little strange, but I've seen it done this way before). But here Ellis made the character very much his own, treading a tightrope between slightly camp and hapless servant of Hook, and immensely likeable and beloved by the audience. He never once stood still, never once stopped, and we loved him. His interaction and comedy asides were perfectly timed. A real natural. 

This pantomime, as indeed all the pantos I have thus far seen at The Garrick, didn't skimp on lighting and special effects. From glitter balls, to a UV sequence; from flying to being sprayed with bubbles, this is a very busy show for the tech team - and the audience are always being treated to some new sensory experience. Great. 

There was one thing that I didn't understand about this show though. There was only really one Dame - Bill Platt's almost dead-pan Bernard-Manning-esque interpretation of Lady Starkey; so why was Mr Darling played in drag, and why was Tiger Lily a middle-aged man and not a young girl? Unless some virtue or real comedy was to be made out of these - which it wasn't - then it was really rather strange. A male mermaid on the other hand was incredibly funny and we all laughed at that!

The cast of Lost Boys (made up I would imagine from the Garrick's own Youth Theatre) were dressed in onesies and had a couple of songs / dances to get their talented teeth into; whilst musically, under the direction of Peter England in the pit below, everything sounded pitch perfect, even if it was, at times, just a tad too loud (maybe the sound technician could just look at the levels).  

The Garrick have done it again, and managed to produce a pantomime which would (and does) put some of the professional ones to shame! The most important thing when judging a pantomime's success is watching the reaction of the children in the audience. They were engaged, shouting, cheering, booing, screaming, and commenting all the way, and all exited with a huge grin. Job done!

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 10.12.21