In our household the Christmas season hasn’t truly kick-started until there’s been a trip to the Wimbledon panto.
This year it’s the boy who never grew up – Peter Pan.
The star turn is the diminutive Austin Powers and Harry Potter actor Verne Troyer who popped his panto cherry by playing Captain Hook’s sidekick Lofty The Pirate.
With all due respect to him his role was largely redundant and was merely used as a vehicle for an exhaustive number of height jokes (he’s just 2ft 8 inches) along with a shoe-horned reference to Mini Me.
Comedian Marcus Brigstocke played the cheeky gold-toothed Captain Hook perfectly and was complemented by his pirate crew who were more hotley than motley.
Easy on the eye with the talent to match, Flawless’ involvement in the production was again more of a vehicle to showcase their dance prowess than as a driving force in the narrative but I, and the rest of the audience, really enjoyed it.
The real star of the show is Captain Hook’s hapless sidekick Smee whose endless energy and dry humour provides the majority of the laughs in the show.
He also leads the scene-stealer, along with fellow pirates Felipe Bejarano and Glen Joseph, in an exhaustive rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas.
I don’t look for a challenging narrative from a pantomime, so the fact that this production is very much style over substance didn’t disappoint me too much.
Despite my reservations, the cheers and clapping from the children in the audience proved it was a big hit with them.
You can get tickets at http://www.atgtickets.com/shows/peter-pan/new-wimbledon-theatre/
Pictures courtesy of Craig Sugden, with thanks
