Review: Peter Pan, Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells

by Helen Geraghty

If you want laughter, audience participation and lots of flying through the air, this year’s Christmas offering at Tunbridge Wells’ Trinity Theatre will whisk you to Neverland without even giving you time to make your bed.

The professional production is this lovely, friendly theatre’s most technically demanding show to date. It is a spectacular musical version of the Peter Pan story, a fairy-filled treat of pirates, red indians, and three dear little children who have a large, lugubrious dog for the most unlikely nanny.

Talented young performers Joseph Taylor and Lucy Edge play Peter Pan and Wendy, who soar singing through the skies to Neverland, with voices that must have been sprinkled with fairydust.

Captain Hook and his greasy sidekick Smee are appalling and hilarious respectively. And don’t miss an energetic horizontal performance by the big, tick-tocking, green crocodile.

Add to this a raft of little dancers, from Lost Boys to Pirates, whose perfect professionalism is matched only by their beaming smiles, and this is a stunning, value-for-money Christmas night out.

The route to Neverland, they say, is: “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning”. As for us, we sang all the way back to the car park.

Peter Pan runs until New Year’s Day. Tickets £14, concessions £13, families £46, rising by £1 from Christmas Eve, families £50. Box office 01892 678678.