REVIEW: Magical telling of Peter Pan

Peter Pan first appeared in a section of The Little White Bird, a 1902 novel written by J.M Barrie for adults.

The character’s best-known adventure first appeared in the form of a stage play entitled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up in 1904. The play was adapted and expanded as a novel as Peter and Wendy, published in 1911.

Since then we have had the Disney cartoon, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook in Hook and pantos aplenty.

But this version at the Hawth, Crawley, was my first experience of the famous story told on ice - and there was something quite magical about it.

This version started off with JM Barrie writing and then the story came to life.

The great set was a bookcase and you knew where you were in the story thanks to the turning of a page in a huge book.

There was no need for any words as the dance and music told the story beautifully. Unfortunately there was some narration in the form of radio DJ Buccaneer Bobby from Radio Jolly Roger who kept the young audience up-to-date with events in the style of a news report. For me this did not work and distracted from the wonderful performance of all the skaters.

But there were some stunning scenes, especially with the acrobatics of Alexander and Ekaterina Belokopytov, who flew through the air with incredible skill.

Captain Hook (Alexei Motorin) stole every scene he was in with his charisma while Ekaterina Bokiy had tremendous grace and verve as Tinkerbell.

It is a wonderful story which has been told in so many ways, but this version may just be the most magical.