Wendy and Peter Pan
adapted by Ella Hickson, from the book by J.M. Barrie
directed Eleanor Rhode
The Lyceum this Christmas presents one of the world’s best loved stories about the boy who never grows up from Scottish writer J.M. Barrie.
Follow the fearless Wendy as she flies with Peter to Neverland – a world of dastardly pirates, feisty fairies and raucous lost boys.
This adaptation has all the magic and wonder of the original, as Wendy and Peter fly together above the rooftops and follow ‘the second star on the right and straight on till morning’ to Neverland. There they find all is not well in the kingdom of the Lost Boys, as the villainous Captain Hook wreaks havoc, can Wendy and Peter band together with fearsome fairy Tiger-Lilly and the irrepressible Tinkerbell to win the day?
Full of fairy-dust, adventure and all your favourite characters this magical story is everything a Christmas treat should be.
Peter Pan is one of those classic texts that appear on stage every so often, and harks back to a sentimental late Victorian notion of childhood. Whenever I see it, however, I always get a sense that some of its subtexts, like the family waiting at home for their children to return, have become more sinister. How easy is it to work with Barrie’s text and adapt its themes to the twenty-first century?
I think Ella has done a brilliant job of adapting Barrie’s work for a modern audience. She hasn’t shied away from the darkness in the original story – it was, after all, a story inspired in part by the death of a child – but she’s also injected the play with brilliant humour and remained faithful to the story’s spirit of adventure. I think the fact that, as storytellers, we keep returning to Peter Pan is a sign of how fundamental its themes are to us as human beings. It may not be set in the 21st Century, but it’s a story of love, imagination and adventure – and those are themes that cross centuries and generations.
What made you take on Peter Pan in the first place? Does the story hold a particular appeal for you?
I was so taken by Ella’s adaptation – particularly that she’s placed Wendy at the heart of the story. It’s still the story of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys in Neverland, but it’s told from Wendy’s perspective. And in this version, not only do the women carry the narrative, they also get to fight, to be vulnerable, to be brave, to be flawed, to be funny – in other words, they’re brilliantly written characters at the heart of the story. Plus, who wouldn’t want to build their own version of Neverland? It’s been such a joy letting our imaginations run wild as we’ve worked on bringing Ella’s text to production.
How do you see the Lyceum’s Christmas production within the wider aims of the Lyceum’s current approach to programming?
It’s been so important for me from the beginning that as soon as the audience walk through the door that they feel that they belong in the building. We don’t want the theatre to feel like a precious place where you have to reverentially sit in the dark – going to the theatre should feel like an event where everyone is welcome, and where there aren’t boundaries between the audience and the action on stage. David Grieg has created an inspired programme for the Lyceum, and I think Wendy and Peter sits firmly within his repertoire – this is a theatre where audiences can be challenged, excited, and which they can claim as their own.
In terms of the dramaturgical process of the production, is there any particular angle that you have taken with the script? I am wondering how much the need for ‘flying’ dictates the process…
The flying has certainly been a huge part of our creative process in bringing the play to the stage, not least because on a technical level it’s quite complicated to achieve and we’ve integrated the flying systems heavily into the set and costume design from the beginning. Having said that, we’re treating the flying as another tool for telling the story – it will be spectacular when it all comes together, but it’s one of many things that will really bring this fantastical world to life on stage. We have a brilliant, multi-talented company, and there’ll be live music, fast-paced sword fights, and more than a few surprises along the way. It’s going to be amazing.
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