“Peter Pan A Musical Adventure” by The Young Performers
Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

Everybody knows the story of Peter Pan but there are two different styles of this J.M. Barrie play – the panto and the musical. This is the musical and my first time of seeing it, anywhere.

Both are the same story wise, just different in the way they are performed. J.M. Barrie's classic tale of the boy who fell out of his pram and disappeared and then never grew up, but longs to be loved by a mother.

Although a children's novel, Barrie has a knack for writing some wonderful character pieces, Wendy being the stand out characters in the way that he shows both the child and maternal sides. If more proof were needed of his female character observation writing style, read, or watch "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals"

Playing our hero is a young man who I have had the pleasure of seeing grow in several ways in the theatre is Harvey Tavener. I have see him not only grow taller, but confidence and vocal wise. His voice is stronger than ever and to hear him belt out the final song with the power and confidence he has made me feel very excited about what his future holds. And he gets to fly as well!

It should not have surprised me but this whole cast were wonderfully well cast and they all did an incredible job, worthy of any professional stage.

Jake Truman is another actor I have seen several times before and, like Harvey, he really believed in his role as Captain Hook. You could tell that he loved the whole evil villainy of the part. What he also nailed was the fine line between being over nasty and not believable as the villain. As in panto, you have to pitch the baddie just right and I felt Jake did this. He also performed his role and his songs, now that may seem a daft thing to say but you could see that Jake felt the role and this came through the whole performance. Plus he got booed at the end when he took his bow, which proved to him that he had done a great job making the audience believe in the role.

Ellen Oldershaw, who played Smee, made me smile, and I loved the Lancashire accent and the energy in her performance.

Caitlin Oldham as Wendy also managed to get that pitch right as layer in the musical she shows a mature, responsible side of Wendy when she is duetting with Peter in "One Big Adventure" about his responsibility of looking after the children, and also manages to retain the little girl in Wendy.Caitlin also has one of those voices that you will remember long after you leave the theatre.

The Storyteller is played by Charlotte Rowland and supplied the glue in the story, enabling the pace to be moved on from scene to scene. One of the important roles that sometimes gets overlooked by the audience.

The Darling family were played by Ryan Yates (John), Drew Boswell (Michael), Molly Parkinson (Mrs Darling), who by the way also has an unforgettably pure and tender singing voice, and Ricky Hill (Mr Darling).

Along with the flying, the other special addition to this was the puppetry by Finlay Dilks with Nana, the Darling's pet dog.

Tinkerbell is played by Brooke Marsden and you can really tell that she has put her dance background to good use as the playful fairy. Loved that when Tinks is about to die, the option to bring her back to life was to applaud instead of asking the audience to shout out that we believe in fairies as this can be a possible embarrassment if the audience are too shy to take part in shouting out, but the applause option worked well. A wise Director's decision.

Directed by Zak Charlesworth, it was hard to believe that this was his Big Musical Directorial debut because of the smoothness of the whole show. Zak has spent the last decade working in musical theatre so he knows his way around a stage and what works in a show and what doesn't, and it's his vast experience that comes through in this show. This boy done really good!

What struck me about this show is that every part of the production has a professional sheen about it, and that includes the brilliant choreography by Vicky Byrne. If you've ever seen any of the choreography for "Matilda", there are certain echoes of this.

The soundtrack is one that I have not heard before but it is absolutely gorgeous, lyrically and musically. The Musical Direction is by George Parkinson, and when you look at the amount of music, vocally and incidental, you can see what a lot of work the band and Musical Director has to do; and they did it very well.

The sets exceeded my expectations and they have that "WOW" factor. I know the back of the stage at The Duchess and know that the wings are small, and with the size of the some of the set pieces, they made the back and side stage areas appear like a tardis.

Roydon Charlesworth, who was responsible for the stage management did a cracking job, and while not everything went as smooth as it was expected with parts of the set, the management of that part of the production was really well executed. I am sure that not everyone would have noticed the miniscule snags, and I am being extremely picky here.

There were also a couple of moments when maybe some incidental music could have been extended to cover the blacked out set when the scenes were being changed. But I am being very very picky as a few seconds with a blacked out stage in silence was probably not picked up on by anyone apart from myself. I think that this is just because it was opening night and everything will be timed to absolute perfection for the rest of the run.

Lighting and sound are now always strong points at The Duchess and that's because they are in the hands of Dave Martin and Dave Sims, respectively.

If you are lucky enough to get a ticket for this gorgeous piece of theatre, you will absolutely love it. What's not to love? It has a beautiful soundtrack, an incredibly talented cast, great choreography and a Director who can add this title to his list of theatrical achievements.

As I said earlier in the review, everything about this musical exceeded my expectations, and I loved it.

“Peter Pan” is at the Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton until Saturday 19 January 2019 but tickets are almost sold out