The Grange School production of Peter Pan, performed by a cast of students aged 11 – 15, proved to be a spectacular and occasionally non-traditional adaptation of the original text.
The impressive multi-level staging took the audience seamlessly from the nursery of the Darling family home to the lagoons and pirate ships of Neverland with cast members taking flight both literally and metaphorically.
The actors gave superb performances and had obviously been very well directed. It seems wrong to single out just a few performances but Remi Livesey played the title role with mischief and charm, Millie Peck sparkled as Wendy, and Sophie Jones made a lusty Hook!
Even more impressively, the production was adapted and co-directed by Year 12 student Jodie Sale, along with Mrs Hardy Kinsella, and featured original music composed by fellow Year 12 student Izzy Hill – her playful and sometimes eerie score contributing hugely to the overall professionalism of the production.
“I just wanted to create a beautiful script,” commented Jodie. “One that took the audience far away. I wanted to create a script that would cause the audience to blink away what’s concerning them outside of the theatre, and importantly, to forget their screens that show recorded two dimensional inanimate images. I wanted to immerse an audience in what’s live, in what’s present.”
With a cast of over sixty pupils, Year 11 students running the lighting desk, and a plethora of other pupils involved backstage it was a mammoth undertaking which truly showcased the depth of dramatic talent within the school.