Fairfield Halls’ foyer was alive with excited scampering kids waving their illuminated cutlasses and making their best pirate noises in anticipation of The Further Adventures of Peter Pan – The Return of Captain Hook. Fun levels were high, writes Michael Holland.
The story has moved on a hundred years to make this a more contemporary tale, to a time when Wendy Darling is now spoken of as the great-grandmother of Emily Darling whose mother thinks she spends far too much time on her phone: ‘We’d be out having adventures with our friends,’ says Mummy Darling thinking nostalgically of the past, which nicely cues up the arrival of Tinkerbell (Gemma Hunt)to take young Emily on an adventure to Never Never Land.
Cut to Smee (Mark Rhodes)bouncing onto the stage energetically and immediately involving the audience in a call-and-response skit, before his arch-Nemesis Captain Hook appears to explain why he didn’t die when swallowed by the crocodile but was here to take back his pirate ship and deal with Peter Pan (David Ribi). In time-honoured fashion, we hissed and booed with gusto.
Peter Pan, however, did not believe that his old enemy, Hook, was still alive, not until he was told that his friend Tinkerbell and her fairies had been kidnapped by him. Peter vowed to free her so we prepared for an action-packed second act.
The kids had a head start on the grown-ups, with the main stars coming from children’s TV, while Hook (Ricky Champ) the baddie came from Eastenders. Hence, the jokes were mainly aimed at the young ones. For the grown-ups, there was a Seaman Staines and Hook telling his pirate crew to ‘take Tinkerbell from the rear’ when plotting her ambush and kidnapping. ‘So she doesn’t see you coming…’ Ooh, er. I’m not sure matron would approve.
We were taken to the Fishcoteque and introduced to the Ethel Mermaid singing Beyoncé’s, ‘All the little fishes, all the little fishes… If you like it then you should have put a hook in it.’
And so this big, colourful, high-end production continued on to its expected end with comedy, drama, the local dance troupe getting their big chance on stage with the professionals and everyone having a good time and going home happy. Smee even slipped in a Harry Kane penalty miss gag one day after it happened. ‘Too soon?’ He asked meekly. We were having too good a time to care.
We emerged from the halls warm with joy and laughter to find two inches of snow, and we truly knew it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Fairfield Halls, Park Ln, Croydon CR9 1DG until 31st December. Times: Varied. Check website for details: www.fairfield.co.uk. Admission: £25 – £35.
Booking: www.fairfield.co.uk
