I thought maybe we should start a Peter Pan review thread but if not please feel free to move. (Contains spoilers, and sorry its a bit long!)

Saturday 12 December

I went to see Peter Pan in Hull yesterday. After a very long journey, several hours and several trains, arrived at the theatre 1 minute to 2pm, with reluctant sister in tow!! Its years since I have seen a pantomime and I was not sure if I would enjoy it, the reluctant sister was adamant she wouldn't BUT ... we both absolutely loved it!!

From the moment Ben flew on - I knew it was going to be brilliant. As he landed he shouted "do you know who I am" and a large proportion of the audience shouted "Ben". This started Ben laughing as he replied "I'm Peter Pan".

That set the scene for a fabulous show. I think Ben is perfect for the part of Peter Pan (as he was for Link). He plays Peter as the loveable hero! He was full of confidence and enthusiasm, energy and fun. Peter Pan might be the title role but Ben's also made it the lead role in my opinion. His stage presence is so strong its hard to take your eyes off him and he seemed to take control from the start putting in the usual 110% performance.

The audience warmed to him straightaway and he had brilliant inter-action with them throughout. When he shouted "do you want to help us" everyone was screaming "yes". It was like everyone wanted to support Ben/Peter. He was also lovely with the children both on and off the stage.

Ben is on stage for much of the time with lots of word perfect dialogue as well as his usual fabulous singing and dancing plus lots of fantastic flying!! His fighting also looked very skilful - could be dangerous if people did not know what they were doing.

I thought Keith Harris was good - Orville not as annoying as I expected but I didn't really like Cuddles who seemed to have a pretty much unrelated slot towards the end of the show.

Paul Nicholas was all right as Captain Hook but I really didn't notice him that much.

The Acromaniacs are a fun interlude and the rest of the supporting cast were excellent too.

One of my favourite bits is the mahem that is the rock-throwing, supervised by Ben !! I think the idea is that the "rocks" are thrown from people's seats but unexpectedly loads of the children came rushing up to the stage.

Ben came down off the stage to throw a few rocks himself and spotted a little boy holding a "rock" but he was way too small to even reach the stage so Ben picked him up so he could throw the rock on to the stage. He then had to keep urging the large crowd of excited children to go back to their seats!!

Really enjoyed Ben singing "Don't stop me now" and "Never smile at a crocodile".

Overall I think the show is really fun - it has just the right mix of story, songs, audience participation and panto fun.

It was so great to see Ben going from Hairspray, to the Michael Ball Tour, to Peter Pan this year as they are all quite diverse and really showcase his fantastic talent in so many different ways.

After the show I went to the stage door. There were about 20 people there most of whom seemed to be waiting for Ben, many commenting that they had seen him in Hairspray. Ben came out after about 10 minutes. He spent lots of time chatting, have pictures taken and asking people wanting autographs what their names were so he could write it on. He bent down to a little girl and asked her which was her favourite bit of the show and she said "the duck and the monkey". This started Ben laughing as he replied "not me then!!"

Ben said that the panto was very challenging but he was really enjoying it and all the cast were getting in to it now - this having been the 4th show of the run.

So question, is it worth the journey to get to Hull? oh yes it is, it definitely, absolutely 100% certainly is.
(Reluctant sister is now considering going to other pantos - think I'll just stick to the ones that Ben's in. )

Hope everyone else that's going has a great time and looking forward to more reviews. )

pleased you made it Linda and thanks for the review, seems the mayhem with the rocks is set to continue.

Its sounds fab, I'm looking forward to going ... thanks for your review Linda

fab review linda and now almost looking forward to it HA HA!

Oh my.

Rock-throwing

... audience participation

... people going up on stage

... and pretty soon, a bunch of Angels in da house ...

Be afraid Ben, be very afraid .....


(thanks Linda )

Great review of Peter Pan in "The Stage"

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/revie ... /peter-pan

Another fab review of Peter Pan from the "Hull Daily Mail".

http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html

(a bit under-stated I think! )

Okay this reinforced that panto really isn't my thing, even with ben in it's just not for me.
Peter pan isn't a great choice for panto either with no love story, no one in drag, not much of a happy ever after and a weak villain.

The young kids did a reasonable job with what they had, we had a particularly cute michael, the lost boys got a bit lost amongst all the star turns, there wasn't really a big number just for them which was a shame. But I think all the boys were boys which is a massive change from when I was a kid and there would be 1 or 2 actual boys and the rest girls pretending( pissed off to be coachmen not fairies).

The girls had a tough time with the roughest material but the kids were charmed.
Captain hook had a good costume, rubbish tash. The acromaniacs did a good job as the pirates and their slot went down well with enough skill to go with the ham.

Keith Harris was very good as smee really funny and had a balance between jokes for the kids and jokes for the adults. His set with the monkey in the second half was funny but in the wrong place. The stuff with the duck.....well it wasn't so bad apart from when the duck was alone on stage still talking which was just frightening.

I enjoyed the rock throwing.

Finally got to see the panto yesterday, after an epic journey that resulted in me missing the first half of the matinee

I thought Ben was great as the all singing, all dancing, all flying (with pointy ballet toes ) Peter Pan. I particularly loved him singing Don't Stop Me Now and This Is the Moment. He had a great interaction with the kids on stage and with the kids in the audience ... I noticed he gave one little boy a high five for a great throw during the rocks section ... sooo cute *the little boy ... not Ben! lol*

Keith Harris and Orville (and Cuddles) was actually funnier than I expected. I preferred the monkey to the duck, although I thought that the whole 'stand-up comedy' section was a bit shoe-horned into the show ... suppose it was to keep the adults happy as well as the kids with the mix of adult and kids humour ... esp for the evening performance lol!

Thought the kids were good, esp as Lips said a very cute Michael. Rock throwing was fun, esp in the evening show as it was chaos in the end resulting in the show stopping for a bit as the rocks continued to be thrown by the hyperactive kids lol! Captain Hook: "Somebody give that kid an ASBO!!!"

Having only seen the 2nd half in the afternoon, I didn't know what was gonna happen for the first bit of the evening show (my day had been a bit topsy turvy anyway). So I took to my seat in the 2nd row at the side in blissful ignorance ... show gets underway, alls good apart from getting an unexpected shower from a super-soaker gun (thank gawd the hose pipe was only a joke ) then enter number one bad guy Captain Hook singing "I'm a villain ... V I double L A I N" to the tune of "I'm a woman ... W O M A N". He's singing away, walking to my side of the stage, gets to the side and totally eyeballs me grinning *cut to me: OMFG ....SHHHHHIIIIIITTTTT*. He then proceeded to walk down the steps, sits in the seat beside me and man-handled me .... I felt violated!!! I'm not gonna tell you where he put the hook .... joke Seriously though it was mortifying ... everyone looking and laughing ... you could have heated a small village off my face Needless to say Paul Nicholas is off my Christmas card list next year and I have developed a twitch

Anyway gonna bring this to a close now, the show is good for what it is and the kids in the audience loved it from what I could see ... altogether now "NEVER SMILE AT THE CROCODILE......."

Great review Nicky and wish i could have seen your face with Captain Hook.......I didn't realise that was Paul Nicholas (used to fancy him in my younger days )

Thanks very much for your reviews Lips and Nicky. Poor Nicky - that close encounter with Captain Hook sounds completely mortifying bet you felt like hiding when you saw him heading your way!

Love the rock throwing chaos - wonder if its getting more violent as the show goes on when I was there loads of children were running down to the front of the stage to throw the rocks and Ben kept having to say "please go back to your seats"!! A couple of people threw rocks at Peter Pan (I expect he thought it made a change from underwear )

I thought the kids really loved the show too. A little girl next to me was dancing in the aisle during the songs - kept getting her tinkerbell wand in my face actually! and as it finished I heard lots of people saying how much they had enjoyed it, so overall a good show I think.

Lol, well it was all Hook's fault it ended in chaos, he threw a rock back at a particularly vicious boy and it all kicked off again ... with Ben trying to get his next line out and having to repeat it a couple of times ... and front of house staff taking the rocks off the kids and telling them to go and sit down (one kid threw rocks into the orchestra pit on purpose, looool!). It was pretty funny

Forgot to mention the Acromaniacs ... their section at the start of the second half was pretty cool

Oh and when Tinkerbell died I am sure I could hear some kids crying in the audience aaaawwwww!

Oh Nicky, for a minute there I thought you had aquired yourself a sugar daddy but no?

What are these rocks made of?

Asbestos ... nah they were foam thankfully

*shudders at the thought of a sugar daddy with a hook ... just my luck at the moment*

Nicky poor you with the OAP - I'm impressed you weren't tempted to give him a slap! Did you get a chance to at least throw a rock at him?