Peter Pan - Nottingham Theatre Royal

As the Christmas period is coming to an end, I thought I'd take one last chance at extending that holiday cheer by going to see one final pantomime.

This year Nottingham have chosen to go with Peter Pan, starring David Hasselhoff, Su Pollard and Barney Harwood. 

I'll be honest, I'm struggling with where to start with this review as the production just left me completely confused. I know the story of Peter Pan, but even so, I struggled to pick up any of the story from the production I went to see. In a nutshell, Peter and Wendy fly off to Neverland without John and Michael, but then they do magically appear later. Tinkerbell sells everyone out to Captain Hook because Wendy has given medicine to the lost boys, then a mermaid catches a crocodile and Peter Pan sword fights Captain Hook. I hope you're as confused as I have been.

The rest of the show is just filled with songs that I didn't recognise (neither did anyone else with the looks of things) and seemed to not really fit with anything, giant sets which is clearly where the budget went rather than on a script, and fabulous costumes for the main actors, whilst the dancers looked like they'd been on a shopping spree to Ann Summers.

David Hasselhoff may have looked the part as Captain Hook but his singing was average and constantly changing words to begin with 'hoff' was not funny the first time, never mind for the proceeding 15 minutes. Otherwise he just kept mentioning boobs which seemed creepy and rather inappropriate.

Su Pollard added a lot of enthusiasm to the show and tackled the songs well, but didn't seem to understand the audience participation too well. When performing in front of mainly children and a lot of young parents, if you shout Hi-de-hi with no context, people are way too young to know what to shout back. Either that or are just too stunned over the previous dance routine where you pushed a dancers head into your crotch.

Barney Harwood is definitely the perfect Peter Pan, not only looking the part but full of boyish charm. It seemed a shame that rather than have lines or songs, the main job for him was to just to fly about the stage on wires and do the occasional backflip. 

The one exciting part of the show was getting to throw foam blocks to defeat the pirates. Unfortunately, they were so large and square that rather than  reaching the stage, they took out the pensioners in the first few rows, with one lady seemingly trying to hide under her own seat.

Overall, I didn't laugh out loud at any of the jokes and the supporting roles seemed bored. Although I probably would too if I had to go through that script twice a day for the month. After that production, Christmas feels completely and utterly dead.