#ppgw behind the scenes

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Harry's Gone Rogue! - Jonathan Sayer's Favorite PPGW Memory

from Mischief's instagram

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Chris Lanceley (the current TPTGW Off-Broadway Chris Bean) replied to Harry’s post!

Well it’s official. Justice has been served and Harry is now Hook 🥳🥳🥳🥳

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Do you also need headphones?

From Chris Leask’s London Theatre Direct Instagram takeover

[peacockpenis]

my favorite hits in ppgw

the scissors — if you didn’t know, chris uses a pair of scissors to cut his tie. the scissors are then put into the dresser, until nana is unable to get a spoon (due to being stuck) so max grabs the scissors as a replacement. when he grabs them, he holds the bottom half of them — the sharp half. chris does the same when using them to feed the medicine to the actors, hiding the fact that these scissors have some sort of sticky end or pin that will hold them in his pants. when he feeds max, the struggle there (controlled by max) allows chris to adjust the grip to then stick the scissors right into his thigh— making it look like he stabbed himself.

doggy door — rather simple actually — robert throws up a hand against the chest to make the sound of his head hitting it (the knap) and reacts as if he hit it. the door itself is very thin so that it doesn’t hurt when it hits him. using trevor, gill, and francis as cover with their chainsaws and such, one of them removes the door to reveal the hole that looks as though it’s been sawed — the door is easily removable otherwise.

liza/mary dress — the liza dress is thrown on over mary’s, but more funny, the bit where the door opens on annie half changed is an extra costume change — the mary dress never needs to come off to put on the liza dress, so that bit is fully an addition to her changes to reveal the bra. ridiculous.

robert on fire — they use robert’s fall from the window as the shadow to put a fire-safe sleeve over one arm, which allows him to catch it on fire a moment later. a clever use of one gag to prep the next!

tree crush — the trees are both operated by hydraulics — they don’t actually fall but are lowered like a lever. the tree also doesn’t fully hit the ground — the body of it remains several inches above the floor. plus, lucy is off line for the hit, meaning she’s not even in the actual line of fire but rather upstage. she wiggles her foot underneath the tree after the initial hit.

missing hook — more noticeable onstage, but chris drops his hook during the increased fog at the end of the first forest scene, and trevor grabs it on his way out. sometimes it’s seamless and you don’t notice he’s lost it until the reveal, sometimes the hook rolls center stage.

boat hits — all simple but effective — the boat to the crotch hit dennis and annie take is to the inner thigh, plus dennis usually keeps one hand at the thigh to catch it early. the hit is given a slapstick sound from offstage to make the knap. both hits of the boat to the head are intercepted by a hand, and since the actors are upstage the audience doesn’t usually catch the hand coming up.

peter’s fall — it’s a dummy. you knew that.

world of make believe hits — again, a hand intercepts the bowl when max swings it, usually a solid foot from the face.

trevor’s hit — my personal favorite. the edge of the table is thinner than the rest (just in case) but again, trevor intercepts with his hand pretty much a foot from his face. if you watch he’s very focused on this hit because immediately after he has to dive forward for his upside down hang. also, after he’s pushed off while unconscious, he’s taken down just out of view in order to allow the next set change.

THE PIRATE SHIP — a lot here, but that boat is fully being balanced on a fulcrum the full time so carefully. kudos to everyone on that. seriously the fact that they have to keep the boat so it doesn't tip until the reveal that it CAN tip is wild.

lucy’s boat hit — when lucy’s rolls forward, she catches the rail with one hand and puts her head on her own hand, rather than actually smacking it. she’s also as in control as possible during the whole sequence — she pulls herself up and down with the rope there.

door hits — a few classics during the end sequence! we get the door open, the slapstick cue and then sandra (behind the door, fully safe and off line) falling into trevor

peter pan slap — some beautiful stage combat from sandra, who is slapping fully off line and the slapstick gives us that lovely slap for jonathan. just a classic.

captain hook’s launch — at one point chris is launched across the boat when it tips the other direction. and while the boat does tip, it’s the actor who does the jump to make it look more dramatic. he’s not actually launched.

francis’ final hit — another favorite: francis is fully offline of the chair. he’s crawling upstage of where the will be pushed in and often makes it further than where the chair stops, but takes the hit fully visually — he does have to intercept cause he’s not even on the same plane as the chair.

[personinthepalace]

Trevor Watson: Bum out - Peter Pan Goes Wrong

From Clare Noy's Mischief instagram takeover

[cornleypolytechnicgoeswrong]

I'm still compiling the answers from this / waiting for more but I thought I'd share an explanation of panto for those unaware

Pantomime is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment often featuring guest stars. Often featuring double entendres that pass over children's heads but entertain the parents/adults

Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing, combines topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. (eg Cinderella, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan) though Straight retellings of the original stories are rare and Certain familiar scenes tend to recur, regardless of plot relevance. Main characters generally stay the same with a focus on a young male hero, his mother (the pantomime dame – usually played by a man in drag), a villain, a princess, a love interest

Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre- the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers eg: 'he's behind you'/'oh no it isn't' 'oh yes it is' The audience is always encouraged to hiss the villain and "awwwww" the poor victims (seen in PPGW)

At some point during the performance, characters including the Dame and the comic will sit on a bench and sing a cheerful song to forget their fears. The thing they fear, often a ghost, appears behind them, but at first the characters ignore the audience's warnings of danger. The characters soon circle the bench, followed by the ghost, as the audience cries "It's behind you!" One by one, the characters see the ghost and run off, until at last the Dame and the ghost come face to face, the ghost, frightened by the Dame, runs away.

There is often a pantomime horse or cow played by two actors in a single costume, one as the head and front legs, the other as the body and back legs.

At least one "audience participation" song is traditional: one half of the audience may be challenged to sing "their" chorus louder than the other half. Children in the audience may be invited on stage to sing along with members of the cast. A slapstick comedy routine may be performed, with humour based on throwing messy substances.

My local panto used to always do the 12 days of Christmas and it would be like '10 toilet rolls' and they'd be throwing loads of toilet rolls around on stage/into the audience. I (aged 14ish) was also once begged to go on stage at the end because there were hardly any kids in the audience and nobody wanted to go on stage. I refused and the guy was so sad. (I'd fallen down all of the stairs literally 20 minutes earlier I didn't feel like embarrassing myself any more)

We always loved to go to the final performance (usually the last day of December) as often things would get really weird, sometimes lines are changed but generally they're much more relaxed and have a lot more improvised fun as the last performance (they can be doing 12+ performances a week during panto season)

HERE is a link to a panto that I haven't watched all of but it looks good! There's really no experience like it haha

as far as I'm aware, pantomimes aren't really a thing in the US so I have 2 questions

1) if you're not from the UK, do you have pantos?

2) if you don't have pantos where you're from, did you understand the panto references in mischief (specifically PPGW)?

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The show was on hold tonight due to the Peter Pan dummy falling too early

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Nancy singing the ppgw lullaby during rehearsals!

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Behind the scenes of the Peter Pan Goes Wrong photoshoot!

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Greg Content

From Chris Leask's London Theatre Direct Instagram takeover

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From left to right: Chris Leask as Max, Bianca Horn as Francis, Ellie Morris as Sandra, Henry Shields as Jonathan, Harry Kershaw as Chris, and Jonathan Sayer as himself

From Nancy Zamit’s instagram