Pantomime is a great British Christmas tradition which brings whole families together but a recent development has helped make it even more accessible for everyone with "relaxed performances" aimed at people with learning or sensory disabilities. These performances reduce sound, lighting and pyrotechnics to lessen sensory overload , edit most frightening scenes and have house lights on to allow people to leave auditorium if they need to. The Empire version of Peter Pan had its relaxed performance on Friday 20th December at 2pm and it was clear from the start that the cast enjoyed it as much as the audience. They all came on to introduce themselves to the audience out of character before the start and to explain that Hook was really a very nice man!
In any case the emphasis of the production is on a lively fun and daft version of the famous story with much of the traditional story jettisoned. There is no Mr and Mrs Darling in the nursery, no "kiss" given to Wendy, no shooting of the "Wendy bird" as she arrives in Neverland and no marooners rock scene. In addition Tiger Lily becomes Tiger Billy (Asa Elliott) and a new character is introduced with Cut-Lasses Kenneth (Tony Maudsley), the hairdresser addition to the pirate crew direct from Benidorm Live.
