Acting Archives - Page 6 of 8

Lemon Tree To Show ‘International Waters’ – Tues Apr 5

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Mar 222016

Fire Exit presents ‘International Waters’, in co-production with Tron Theatre. With thanks to Liz Smith.

The social fabric has finally torn. Airports are closed, roads are blocked. Now even the 1% need to seek asylum. Four obscenely rich members of the elite pay through the nose to join an exclusive party on the last ship leaving London.

They stay alive using the only things they know – money, sex and madness. But the ship is sailing in the wrong direction.

They realise they don’t know each other. They don’t know the Captain. They don’t know what the hell is going on.

Like a perverse Aesop’s fable for the apocalypse, the twisting plot explores how progress can sometimes turn out to be a trap.

In this case it involves elegant glamour, brutal food poisoning, cyborg finance, Mack The Knife and a delicious bull testicle meringue.

The room keeps inexplicably shaking with an ear-splitting mechanical growl. Is this exile, extradition, extraordinary rendition? Are other passengers hidden on board? What’s their dangerous cargo? There’s a rumour it’s animals. Pairs of animals.

An aging pop crooner, a hapless trophy wife, a foul-mouthed photojournalist and a neurotic civil servant all know much more about the outside world than they’re letting on…

International Waters comes from multi-award-winning writer and director David Leddy, who has been called ‘Scotland’s leading theatrical innovator’ (Times) a ‘maverick’ (Guardian), a ‘genius’ (Scotsman), an ‘iconoclast’ (List) and an ‘institution’ (Independent).

The show features a stellar team of award-winning designers and actors. The four actors are: Selina Boyack (Nominated Best Actress TMA Awards, The Stage Awards and CATS Awards); Claire Dargo (Nominated Best Actress at The Stage Acting Excellence Awards, Sub Rosa, The Duchess of Malfi); Lesley Hart (March of Women, The Events, Dear Scotland); Robin Laing (Band of Brothers, Filth, Mary Stuart).

Set and costume by Becky Minto (Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, Prague Quadrennial 2015 World Stage Design Exhibition); lighting by Nich Smith (Lighting Design Awards Best Public Building 2008, Cryptic, Long Live the Little Knife, Sub Rosa); sound by Danny Krass (Swallow, Huff, Who Cares); Production Manager Niall Black (Complicite, Royal Court, NTS).

Fire Exit presents, in co-production with Tron Theatre,

INTERNATIONAL WATERS.

Tues 5th April, 7.30pm.
The Lemon Tree,
5 W N Street,
Aberdeen,
AB24 5AT

Tickets: £13.20 inc bf | Students £5
http://www.aberdeenperformingarts.com/events/international-waters

Flare Path At HMT – Duncan Harley Reviews

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Mar 172016

Duncan Harley Reviews Flare Path at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen.

Of every 100 airmen who joined Bomber Command during the Second World War, 45 were killed and a further fourteen badly wounded or taken prisoner of war. As the war progressed the odds improved, but when this play was first staged in the war-time London of 1942, the chances of surviving a tour of duty in the primitive heavy bombers of the time were firmly stacked against the young aircrews.

Terence Rattigan wrote Flare Path while serving as an air-gunner in Coastal Command, which at the very least enabled him to insert a degree of authenticity into the script.

Early performances were frequented by the good and the great including RAF Air Marshals keen to advise the playwright on how to improve things. When Churchill saw the play he famously remarked that it was a masterpiece of understatement.

Bizarrely, Keith Newman, Rattigan’s psychiatrist, felt compelled to attend the first 250 performances before publishing an impenetrable book entitled ‘250 Times I Saw a Play’. He was later confined in a psychiatric hospital having subjected one of the male leads to a barrage of love letters.

Few original 1940s RAF flyers survive into the 21st century and Rattigan himself died in 1977. However, now revived as a national tour, Flare Path still has the power both to shock and to entertain a modern audience.

The action takes place in 1940s Lincolnshire. The setting is the residents’ lounge of the austere but adequate Falcon Hotel. Overhead, bombers take off, land and explode in flames.

Audrey Palmer’s portrayal of hotelier Mrs Oakes captures the mood of the time perfectly. The prickly proprietor provides an austerely correct foil to the chummy aircrew who, in the main, ignore rank and privilege even to the point of directly addressing their commanding officer as Gloria.

Amidst a love tangle which threatens to break apart Teddy’s marriage to Patricia, the motley bunch of airmen look forward to some well earned time off-duty.

Enter stage left Squadron Leader ‘Gloria’ Swanson, Graham Seed, with some difficult news.

Take off for Germany is at 2240 hours and it won’t exactly be a piece of cake. The wives are left to worry and wait. There is a war on, after all.

It’s not all doom and gloom however. There are comedy turns: the best of which must be William Reay’s portrayal of Polish Flying Officer Count Skriczevinsky’s reunion with Countess Doris, played by the bubbly Claire Andreadis. Following an air crash into the English Channel, he returns blackened but triumphant from his dip in the drink, to deliver a comedy routine worthy of Eric Morecambe.

Wellingtons and Wimpys, passion and loyalty and above all a sense of duty are central themes of this play and by the final curtain the audience will have received some insight into the psychological effects of waging total war from the air.

The dialogue may be dated, and many of the accents typically posh British, but the essential message of Rattigan’s play still reaches out to modern audiences; and that, surely, is the whole point of a revival.

Directed by Justin Audibert with Sound Design by Dominic Bilkey, Flare Path plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday 19th March.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Jack Ladenburg

An Inspector Calls At HMT: Duncan Harley reviews

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Mar 112016

Duncan Harley reviews.

When dramatist JB Priestley attended an opening night of his play ‘Time and the Conways’ at Chichester Festival Theatre, a fellow theatregoer commented that she didn’t really understand what it was all about.

“Neither do I”, he seemingly retorted, “and I wrote the bloody thing!”

Priestley’s Time Plays are challenging at the best of times. Plots not only thicken but tread an intricate path through such niceties as quantum physics and Ouspensky’s theory of eternal recurrence.

In ‘Dangerous Corner’, past dark deeds are expunged when time reverts; and in ‘Time and the Conways’, Dunne’s theory of simultaneous time takes a theatrical bow.

The Time Plays can of course be enjoyed on various levels, and ‘An Inspector Calls’ is no exception. A socialist versus capitalist parable, a critique of outdated Edwardian values and a fourth dimensional take on collective responsibility all present as central themes.

Premiered in the USSR in 1945, the narrative probes the inner secrets of the prosperous but almost hopelessly dysfunctional Birling family. In the midst of a house party celebrating the engagement of daughter Sheila, played by Katherine Jack, to suitor Gerald Croft, played by Matthew Douglas, the doorbell rings. A trench coated Scotsman calling himself Inspector Goole has called, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragic and very recent suicide of a young woman.

In this superbly challenging revival by director Stephen Daldry, nothing is as it seems. Even the time frame remains fluid.

Set in pre-First-War 1912, the action takes place amidst the wailing of 1940s air raid sirens and the crump of Luftwaffe bombs exploding in the near distance. This provides a counterpoint, if one were needed, to the privilege and safety enjoyed by the precious few. As the interrogation of the guilty partygoers progresses, it becomes clear that Inspector Goole’s goal is one of exposure, ridicule and censure. He already knows what he has come to find out.

Liam Brennan’s quietly confident Inspector Goole presents initially as a somewhat awkward foil to the privileged and self-assured folk of the Birling household. Slowly and inexorably his softly spoken interrogations build one upon the other until, one by one, the accused recognise some measure of personal complicity in the events leading to the poor girl’s suicide.

By the time Goole delivers his ‘Fire, Blood and Anguish’ speech in Act Three, the sharply clipped and supremely confident language of the partygoers has given way to despair and even regret. As they attempt to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, the plot takes yet one more unexpected turn.

‘An Inspector Calls’ is a challenging and thought-provoking drama raising important issues which remain relevant today.

In order to sustain tension among the audience, there is no interval during this production.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, ‘An Inspector Calls’ plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday March 12th.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Mark Douet

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert – At HMT, Aberdeen

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Mar 032016

I Will Survive - Photo credit Paul Coltas

I Will Survive – Priscilla Queen of the Desert – The Musical – Photo credit Paul Coltas

Duncan Harley reviews.

In a musical tale which has achieved cult status worldwide, two drag queens and a transgender person board a battered old bus by the name of Priscilla for the road trip of a lifetime. Duncan James as Tick, Simon Green as Bernadette and Adam Bailey as Felicia don’t know it yet, but they are in for a truly transformational journey.

Accompanied by a shed load of sequins, a case of champagne and enough feather boas to bankroll Poundland, the outrageously camp trio set off into the Australian outback, leaving behind the safety of Sydney, and head in the direction of Alice Springs in search of love.

Along the way the three friends in skirts attract homophobia, red-necked ridicule, uncalled-for violence and of course rampant self-doubt. Even Priscilla suffers a breakdown and is saved by a knight in shining armour. Philip Childs as Bob the friendly mechanic arrives in the nick of time to take matters in hand and save the day.

The stage set is relatively simple. That is, of course, if you consider the manoeuvring of a full size single-decker bus around His Majesty’s stage an easy task. Priscilla pretty much fills the available space and if you look behind her, the vast expanse of the outback forms a shimmering theatrical backdrop. Indoor scenes are stark and appropriately minimalist. Costume, lighting, dance and song are where this production is at.

The term flamboyant springs to mind when describing the costumes, although in reality this might be an understatement. In fact the costumes are 98 percent outrageously both super-camp and extravagantly OTT. Around five hundred costumes are used in this production and few of them could be described as simply ordinary. And then there are those wigs!

The bus painting scene sees the company singing ‘Colour My World’ while dressed as paintbrushes primed to obliterate the words ‘Fuck off Faggots’ from Priscilla’s flank.

In the ‘Macarthur Park’ scene, a bevy of dancing divas tastefully made up as teacakes provide a delightfully sugary green accompaniment to Duncan James’ rendering of the Jimmy Webb / Richard Harris classic.

A pounding hit-parade of hot disco dance numbers such as ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, ‘Boogie Wonderland’ and the vibrant ‘Hot Stuff’ abound, alongside a slightly obscure and curiously Bacofoil-like take on Verdi’s ‘Sempre Libera’.

As a dazzling musical extravaganza, Priscilla Queen of the Desert works splendidly well throughout, with Duncan James, Simon Green and Adam Bailey slipping effortlessly into the lead roles.

There is more than a whiff of Panto in this production, which features a splendid warm up routine delivered by Callum MacDonald as Miss Understanding; and a few surprises pop up, including a half-time Aussie Barn Dance featuring volunteers from the audience, plus a hilarious slapstick routine in which Bob’s wife Cynthia, played by Julie Yammanee, ejects ping-pong balls from the usual orifices.

Priscilla offers first class entertainment and is a definite must see. However the faint hearted may need to avert their eyes during the ping-pong scene.

Directed by Simon Philips with resident director Tracy Lane, the musical, Priscilla Queen of the Desert plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday March 5th.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Paul Coltas

Hairspray At HMT – Duncan Harley reviews.

Aberdeen City, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 042016

Hairspray at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen – Duncan Harley reviews.

Baltimore might seem an unlikely setting for a fun-filled glitzy musical romp; after all, the city today ranks amongst the top ten US cities in terms of homicides. In the racially segregated 1960s, however, events in Baltimore mirrored those in many US cities as both debate and mass protest began to challenge the racial politics of the era.

Hairspray is set firmly within that period of change, and the plot explores not only the racial and minority stereotypes of the time, but also challenges perceptions regarding acceptable body image.

Freya Sutton’s Tracy Turnblad is a big girl with a big heart and a big hairdo. Her mother Edna, played amply by Tony Maudsley, is similarly challenged in the body-size department. However with the love of a good man, in the shape of Peter Duncan’s diminutive Wilbur Turnblad, she shrugs it all off and just gets on with life. This is body politics at its best.

Following a dream sequence, clearly mirroring Martin Luther King Junior’s 1963 speeches, Tracy embarks on a musical journey which will ultimately transform the politics of segregation in her native Baltimore, and overcome deeply held prejudice.

Along the way she nabs the man of her dreams, local heart-throb Link Larkin, gets on the telly and does some jail time.

Tony Maudsley’s portrayal of Edna Turnblad is an absolute delight. Imagine if you will, a gruff voiced Fred Flintstone in drag morphing into a sparklingly sophisticated Dame Edna Everage, and you’ve got it in one. Add in a good dose of irreverent humour plus a measure of slapstick and it just gets better and better.

Peter Duncan’s confident and witty portrayal of Tracy’s dad, Wilbur, brings to mind those Donald McGill seaside postcards of old. Cast as the diminutive foil to the super-sized Edna, he brings a lifetime of experience to the production. The jokes may be corny but the man who once crossed the Irish Sea in a VW Beetle still manages to get a laugh.

Historical context references within the script pop up with alarming regularity. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and an aside about Khrushchev’s shoes were clearly lost on younger audience members, but no matter, a few script changes could easily sort that out.

Alongside the politics and the humour this show is all about glitzy fast moving musical entertainment, and it is on this level that Hairspray excels. From the opening “Good Morning Baltimore” to the “You Can’t Stop the Beat” finale, Hairspray grasps the audience firmly in its hand.

The Baltimore pastiche provides a fabulous backdrop for a high-energy performance laden with toe-tapping bubblegum retro-numbers, glitzy costumes and explosive dance routines.

Following the standing ovation, an Aberdeen theatre-goer was overheard telling her friend:

“the only thing I need now is an ice-pack to cool down my hands from all that clapping.”

Praise indeed!

Directed by Paul Kerryson with choreography by Drew McOnie, Hairspray plays at HMT Aberdeen until Saturday February 6th

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley and Images © Ellie Kurttz – UK tour cast 2015

‘Cabaret’ At Arts Centre – Duncan Harley Reviews.

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Feb 042016

‘Cabaret’ At Aberdeen Arts Centre – Duncan Harley Reviews.

When Sally meets Cliff in this toxic tale of the birthing of the thousand-year Reich, it’s obvious from the very start that the audience are in for a rough ride.

The theatre space is transformed into a seedy 1930s Berlin night-club, and to gain entry, ticket-holders have to run
the gauntlet of an aggressively authoritarian storm trooper guarding the
entrance.

Once safely inside the sanctuary of the intimate Kit Kat Club, theatre-goers can look forward to an evening of sleazily decadent entertainment, while on the streets outside the Nazi grip on Germany tightens as the Weimar Republic slowly withers.

The main action takes place within the club, where Lucas Rush as Emcee gaily struts his stuff in a delightfully menacing manner. Lucas and the Kit Kat company welcome club-goers with a powerful rendition of “Willkommen”.

“Leave your troubles outside … We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful.”

Act one features a dozen classics, each powerfully delivered; including “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”, “Married” and of course “The Money Song”.

The second act delivers equally strong numbers, with “Kickline” by Emcee and Club Girls signalling a sea change in fortunes for the people of Europe. Indeed while Act One stresses the veiled acceptance of debauchery and the easy tolerance of diversity in pre- fascist Germany, the remainder of the action is icily shocking. Alex Wadham’s portrayal of Ernst Ludwig’s transition from easy amiability to dictatorial ferocity is truly frightening.

As the plot develops however, some cracks appear. The singing cannot be faulted nor can the musical score: the integration of audience and players within the Kit Kat Club works on a high level indeed, and in the main, the choreography works stunningly well.

This unfolding story is seen through the eyes of young American novelist Cliff Bradshaw, and is based around Christopher Isherwood’s classic 1939 novel “Goodbye to Berlin”. Traditionally a central focus is on the doomed love affair between English cabaret performer Sally Bowles, played here by Carolyn Maitland, and Cliff, played by Jonathan Vickers. Cliff has come to Berlin to finish his novel but soon finds other distractions.

In this production the sub-plot romance between James Paterson’s Herr Schultz and Sarah Shelton’s Fraulein Schneider is a much more central theme. Timed to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day, the focus on this relationship, between a Jewish fruit-shop owner and his non-Jewish landlady, is perhaps quite forgivable. Both give a strong performance, the highlight undoubtedly being their duet “It Couldn’t Please Me More – the Pineapple Song”.

In broad terms the production succeeds and is well worth seeing. The entertainment value is there big-time and the immersive audience experience highlights the value of interactive theatre.

Directed by Derek Anderson and produced by David Adkin, Cabaret plays at the Arts Centre Theatre Aberdeen until Saturday February 6th.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

Words © Duncan Harley, Images © Darren Bell

Creed – Andrew Watson Reviews.

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Jan 212016

Boxing drama Creed continues the Rocky series as its seventh instalment, both a sequel and spinoff. Aberdeen Voice’s Andrew Watson was there the day of its UK release.

Michael B. Jordan plays ‘juvenile tearaway’, Adonis Johnson.

There were maybe just over a dozen people at Cineworld at Queens Links during the Friday midmorning showing; which would be about right, given it was a weekday and many would’ve been
working.
It borrows a lot from the preceding films in the series, but the repetition is slightly more artistic symmetry than aping years gone by and merely being lazy. It’s not entirely a masterpiece, though.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) is a tearaway in juvenile hall, who happens to be the lovechild of deceased boxing legend, one of Rocky Balboa’s fiercest rivals and closest friends, Apollo Creed.

Creed’s widow takes him under her wing, and the boy becomes a man that feels as if something in his life is missing.

Partly inspired by his father’s success in the ring, he goes to seek out Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) as the trainer to propel him into the boxing limelight and title glory.

Antagonist-wise there’s real-life boxer and Liverpudlian Tony Bellew, who serves as Creed’s English opposition, Ricky Conlan.

Between training montages and the like, Tessa Thompson serves as Creed’s love interest, Bianca.

There aren’t many of the original characters reprised in this film, and many maybe crestfallen than it’s not just Adrian who isn’t on the go anymore.

Positives of the film include the soundtrack, though much of it in that sense are reprises from previous films. There’s no denying, however, that chill as you hear the tolling of the bell; that the real training has begun. Or the pounding of the drums as he races up that stairwell.

Negatives, though, centre around Adonis. For someone who’s meant to be the blood of Apollo, he appears to have little of the charisma which gave his father such stage presence. To be out acted by a full-time boxer in Bellew, who plays a good villain in the piece, is daresay not very flattering.

Something else, which has carried on from Rocky Balboa, is the believability of the film. Now, this isn’t concerning the much derided fight scenes of the first five in the series. That aspect has definitely caught up with the times, and is far more based in realism than it used to be.

This more concerns how protagonist and antagonist weigh in against eachother. In Rocky Balboa, Rocky squares up to a comparatively rake-like Mason Dixon and so doesn’t look to be in the same weight division.

The same applies when muscular Adonis faces off with Ricky Conlan, though funnily enough the latter is indeed, as in the film, a light heavyweight in real life. Perhaps they elected for how good an actor was for the part, than any issues that may arise concerning body presentation.

All in all, it manages to come to a reasonable enough conclusion to encourage the viewer to stick around for the rumoured parts two and three of a spinoff trilogy. The parallels between this first Creed film and the original Rocky debut are definitely by design, and not accident.

New Tour For Tailor Of Inverness

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Jan 212016

With thanks to Liz Smith.

Matthew Zajac’s perennial success, The Tailor of Inverness, sold out for three weeks in April 2015 at New York’s Brits Off Broadway Festival and the new UK tour of the production opens at Durness Village Hall on Monday 1 February and finishes at Nottingham Playhouse on Saturday 19 March.

The production will celebrate its 250th performance at Birmingham Rep on saturday March 5th.

2015 was a year of mixed fortunes for Dogstar Theatre Company. Joint Artistic Director and founder Hamish MacDonald resigned from the company due to funding setbacks and this meant no new production was possible during last year.

Remaining Artistic Director Matthew Zajac resolved to remain in position in the hope that future funding would be forth coming.

The good news is that a new project grant has been awarded by Creative Scotland for Dogstar to co-produce Mungo Park – Travels in the Interior of Africa by Martin Lyngbo & Thor Bjorn Krebs. The co-production is with Mungo Park Arts Centre of Denmark, one of Scandinavia’s leading theatre companies.

Under Martin Lyngbo’s leadership, Mungo Park AC, based in the Copenhagen suburb of Allerod, has won numerous awards and now has an annual subscription membership of over 5,000.

Mungo Park – Travels in the Interior of Africa tells the extraordinary story of the Scottish doctor who charted large parts of the River Niger during two expeditions, in 1795 and 1805. The second of these ended in his death. A combined Danish/Scottish cast will present an irreverent tragi-comic adventure for audiences in Scotland and Scandinavia.

The production is scheduled to open in Copenhagen in late June prior to running at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe during August and touring Scotland in September – followed by Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland in spring 2017.

www.dogstartheatre.co.uk

Star Wars, The Force Awakens – Andrew Watson Reviews

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Dec 172015

The American epic space opera Star Wars began again with its seventh instalment, The Force Awakens. Aberdeen Voice’s Andrew Watson was there the day of its general release.

There were maybe just over a dozen people at Vue on Shiprow during the Thursday midmorning showing; which would be about right, given there were midnight and crack of dawn showings preceding it.
Generally speaking, with films of this nature, and magnitude, it can go one of two ways. This being faithful to the originals; or overcompensating lack of good storytelling with supreme focus upon special effects, fight sequences and otherworldly landscapes.

This however, seems to straddle the two. It’s not mind blowing; yet not too bad, either.

Basically, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) has gone missing, and the Resistance (what used to be the Rebel Alliance) are seeking him out for help against the odious First Order (what used to be the Galactic Empire). The latter has all but one of the fragments of data detailing his location, and the good guys have that one last piece of vital information.

So far, so good. This is the kind of solid underdog tale that the series has so successfully relied upon since its debut in 1977.

Though the best of the original characters are reprised with the same actors and actresses as before; the two or three main protagonists of the film aren’t so long in the tooth.

You’ve got Daisy Ridley as Rey, who’s basically this generation’s Luke Skywalker in the female form. She’s a scavenger and quite self-sufficient. There’s also rogue Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) who’s integral to the Resistance standing a chance of defeating the First Order.

On top of all that, Oscar Isaac plays ace pilot Poe Dameron with all the attributes of a non-greying Han Solo. Everyone else in the film more or less plays a supporting role to these three, including Harrison Ford (the aforementioned Han Solo) and Carrie Fisher (General Leia Organa).

Antagonist wise, there’s the triumvirate of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). This could also be read as the Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine and Governor Tarkin equivalent of the film.

Come the end of the film, there are a couple of surprises. There’s yet another father and son divide, and someone of stellar importance to the series dies. The former might anger people. The latter, however, could definitely be very contentious among Star Wars fans.

All in all, it manages to come to a reasonable enough conclusion to stand by itself without the remaining two sequels. On the other hand, enough happens and enough is left unresolved to urge the viewer to watch the next instalment.

Peter Pan Flies Again: Duncan Harley Reviews

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Dec 032015

Duncan Harley reviews this year’s pantomime at HM Theatre, Aberdeen

Jordan Young (left), Elaine C Smith and Alan McHugh. Photo by Michal Wachucik-Abermedia

Panto returned to the Aberdeen stage this week, with familiar faces Elaine C. Smith, Jordan Young and Alan McHugh firmly at the helm of the Jolly Roger, in this classic tale of the boy who never grew up.

The traditional story features a flying child, Peter Pan, who lives in Neverland and just likes to have fun.

Thrilling adventures unfold with the likes of pirates, Native Americans and of course a very alarmed crocodile. Faeries and Lost Boys feature, alongside tales of unrequited love and self sacrifice.

The flying child is in this case played by Scott Fletcher, who carries the role admirably, despite his obvious male attributes. Peter is frequently played by a woman.

The draft for the original 1904 J.M. Barrie play seemingly lacked both pirate ship and Captain Hook. Fortunately for theatre audiences, the author soon added both, and Peter Pan’s nemesis was born.

At Tuesday evening’s performance, and true to pantomime tradition, John Jack’s Captain Hook was resoundingly booed at points by an appreciative young audience, despite an engagingly villainous and faultless performance.

Written by Alan McHugh, who plays the colourfully boisterous Dame Maggie Celeste, this swashbuckling take on Peter Pan follows the traditional modern Pantomime route of audience engagement, plus several laughs a minute. Comedic duo, Dame Maggie and Jordan Young’s Smee work well together. Add Elaine C. Smith to the mix as the Magical Mermaid and the slapstick comedy takes off big-time!

New Pitsligo, Portlethen, Stewarty Milne and even Donald Trump take it on the chin as the often hilarious and sometimes raucous gags power on throughout this high energy production.

The 3D presentation in Act 2, although technically competent, seemed superfluous. It was more than made up for by the impressively scary Clockodile, however.

The team from Aberdeen Academy of Dance performed flawlessly, with both Aedan Dufton’s Michael Darling, and Logan Reid’s John Darling deserving special mention.

With costumes, set and special effects to die for, this is pantomime at its finest delivered by a creative team well-used to engaging with Aberdeen audiences.

Children of all ages are guaranteed a Jolly Roger of a time and the spectacle of an airborne Magical Mermaid has to be seen to be believed!

Directed by Nick Winston and Produced by Michael Harrison with Musical Direction by Captain Nemo – Peter Pan plays at HM Theatre Aberdeen until Sunday 3 January 2016.

Tickets from Aberdeen Performing Arts Tel: 01224- 641122

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