Rapper Vanilla Ice's starring panto role in Chatham seems to have been lost in translation in America.

News the star will play Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the Central Theatre this year appears to have caused some confusion across the pond.

People in Ice' home nation have got their transatlantic wires crossed, and think he is going to be a mime artist.

Pantomimes are a foreign concept to most Americans, who think they are a silent performance rather than a family Christmas production.

Rumours that he will perform his role without speaking has spread like wildfire across dozens of US celebrity news websites and blogs.

USmagazine.com said Ice, pictured right, is "taking one old adage to heart: silence is golden!"

It said: "He can only use body movements and facial contortions to act out the sinister role."

An article on popcrush.com said: "We can't make this stuff up. Pantomiming is harder than method acting, but someone across the pond really believes Ice has the chops to pull it off."

Ice - real name Robert Matthew Van Winkle - will play the pirate villain in
his first panto from Friday, December 9 to Monday, January 2.

A Medway Council spokesman: "While we do think it is hilarious that over in America some people think Vanilla Ice is set to become the next Charlie Chaplin or Marcel Marceau, we can assure everyone that he isn't.

"In fact, we believe he will be the biggest, meanest and loudest Captain Hook ever."

Ice rose to fame with his 1991 hip-hop hit Ice, Ice Baby. He was also a contestant in this year's Dancing on Ice and will soon appear in the UK tour of the show.