By Henry Green
Notts TV has been given an exclusive look behind the scenes of Theatre Royal’s Peter Pan pantomime featuring Gok Wan and Paul Chuckle.
The panto has now been running for five days, with the pair being joined by Britain’s Got Talent finalist Steve Hewlett as Smee, Nottingham native Aiden Carson as Peter Pan and Molly Farmer as Wendy.
Nottinghamshire actor Richard Winsor plays Captain Hook after he replaced Denise Welch, who can no longer perform due to ill health.
The theatre’s annual pantomime is the largest in the city and a fixture every Christmas for thousands of local families.
Aidan Carson, who plays the role of Peter Pan said: “The first shows have gone really well, everyone seems to love it it’s such a fun show there’s everything you would want in the show.”
On the Nottinghamshire audience Aidan, who is from Long Eaton, said: “They’re amazing, being back here on this side of things after seeing so many shows in the audience is just so lovely.”
Molly Farmer, who plays Wendy Darling, graduated from drama school 18 months ago and has been interested in performing arts since her dad took her to see Wicked when she was six.
The cast have been performing two shows every day since the run began on Saturday (December 7).
“It’s gone pretty good, with panto because you do two shows everyday you get into the swing of it really quickly,” Molly said.
“The different audiences are amazing, when we have the kids in I love it because they react so much and I feel like that makes things fresh and different. The kids show was definitely a favourite audience maybe ever,” the 22-year-old added.
Donna Ruane is part of a company called Theatre Sign, which provides interpretive performances across the United Kingdom for audience members who have hearing loss.
Donna said: “To prepare for something like panto usually I will have a recording of an early show in the run so that I can see where the performers are when on stage when they are delivering their lines.
“Because BSL (British Sign Language) is very visual and so when we are presenting this, I will be one character then I will be the other character answering so it will move side to side or up and down depending where the characters are,” she added.
Matthew Allan plays John Darling in the panto and has previously performed in Peter Pan Goes Wrong as well as appearing at the Theatre Royal back in April for David Walliams theatre production Awful Auntie.
Matthew said: “Nottingham’s incredible, it’s a lovely city so to get the opportunity to come back was a dream. The last show we toured all around the country and you knew when you were in Nottingham.
“It’s exciting, it’s an incredible show we are having such a good show, everyone’s just having fun. Our company manager said if we are not having fun, there’s no point in doing it,” he added.
Martin Hutchinson, the company stage manager for this year’s Peter Pan, says he is known as “Mr Busy”.
“It’s very busy, I don’t stop it is a very intense time – my role is pushing the panto on making sure we are hitting all the schedules on time and making sure people are in the right place,” he said.
Martin explained how coming to Nottingham was “a full circle moment” for him as he started his career in pantomime in the city.
“I love Nottingham, it’s a great privilege to be back now leading the team and the audiences here are so fantastic, you just get this buzz of the room,” he added.
Peter Pan will run at the Theatre Royal until January 12 2025. Tickets range from £16.50 to £45, with tickets still available to buy on the Theatre Royal website.
