#ppgw edit

[personinthepalace]

Sandra touching Max's chest in Peter Pan Goes Wrong (2016)

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Claude Bennett, Carol Bennett, and Charlotte Bennett... Max's Uncle Jerry keeps getting left (but Aunt Claude keeps coming back!)

(My headcanon about the many Aunt's that Max has. Yes, I could just say he has multiple aunts to multiple uncles, but it's funnier if Jerry just keeps getting left. And just to be clear, Charlotte is my named version of his Aunt from DYD before we knew about the connection with Carol from PPGW or Claude from the newest TPTGW playbill. Either way, funny that they're all C names!)

he really does have a lot of relatives starting with c hahaha. anyway this ask actually opened up a possibility i hadn’t thought of before, which was claude being a woman!!! id just always interpreted it as a man’s name, and because in the 2nd edition tptgw programme it’s chris that received an inheritance rather than max, and that was confirmed to be his grandfather, i’ve always thought of claude as being max’s grandfather. so i like the different interpretation!!!

[doctor-lawyer-rabbi]

Hm. So this video is over 100MB and Tumblr won’t let me post it.

Hard Knock Life, but Mischief Theatre.

[personinthepalace]

My personal fave :)

I, Tonya (2017) Little Women (2019)  The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

[cornleypolytechnicgoeswrong]

Do you have any headcanons for how/ what order they all joined, or their ages in relation to each other? Usually if it isn't stated I assume the characters are the same ages as the actors, but in this case I can't even find that out for half of them!

I'll leave my tl;dr lists here and my reasoning below the cut for anyone interested!

Order they joined: Robert > Sandra > Annie > Chris > Dennis > Max + Trevor > Lucy > Jonathan > Vanessa

Age: Robert > Annie > Trevor > Chris > Dennis > Jonathan > Sandra > Max > Vanessa > Lucy [edit: I swapped max and Sandra]

This post is a really good breakdown of each characters history within cornley gathered from programs/playbills (which can be found in my #mischief playbills and #mischief programs tags). (thank you @reallyhardy it’s a very useful post!!)

According to this post they 'try so hard to make out like the characters aren't all the same age' but obviously are played by actors of the same age so it's a bit dependent on how you want to take it.

That said I've managed to work out some sort of order for when they each joined the group - this could be reflective of their ages too but also there's very little to suggest this

So I can say with some confidence that Robert was the first of the cornley gang to join. (40 productions since 2002 with them I have absolutely no idea how many shows they do each year this could be upwards of 4 shows a year or they just put 10 on one year for the lols) Followed by Sandra (interestingly, where Sandra had 11 acting credits and Chris 6, Chris was elected head of the group). I can then say Annie and Chris both joined around the same time (as of TPTGW Chris had 6 acting credits and Annie had been crew for 3 years so presuming they do 2 shows a year they joined at the same time however the number of shows they put on is very unclear leading me to think Annie may have joined just before Chris). I can confidently say Max and Trevor joined after those 4 (it's stated that tptgw was Max's first year and apparently Trevor said he never wanted to work with them again leading me to believe it was his first time experiencing CDS). Then I would say confidently that Lucy joined after those 6. Then I would say Vanessa joined last, possibly once they changed from cornley polytechnic drama society to just cornley Drama Society (though I'm not 100% certain of the timeline)

Dennis and Jonathan are very difficult. Jonathan seems to have very little information about him based on my personal feelings I would put him about the same time as Lucy simply because PPGW is the first time I can remember seeing them both. Dennis apparently couldn't get into any other societies but I truly do not know where to place him. I'd like to put him quite late on because of how much he struggles but I truly do not know, he moves in with Robert eventually so I would argue he had been there for a while. Maybe somewhere between Chris and Max+Trevor?

Age becomes more difficult since you can go to uni at any age and courses vary in length. Seemingly Robert wasn't a student, once again placing him at the top age-wise. I'd then put Annie due to her odd backstory involving a husband and 2 children for which I'd assume she'd have to have lived for at least a few years past 18. Then Trevor because apparently PPGW was his final year at uni for the 3rd time running. Then I'd put Chris followed by Dennis then Jonathan based purely on vibes tbh(if anyone could find evidence to prove or disprove I would be eternally grateful!) then Max (tptgw was his first year I believe so I'm saying he's relatively young) [edit: I'm swapping max and Sandra, if tptgw was Max's first year and Sandra had already been there for 11 shows I'd say she's older than him] I'd put Sandra [4th] from the youngest because apparently she won a child's beauty pagent thing in 1998 making me think she's about Lucy's age (considering Robert was working at cornley 4 years later in 2002), followed by Vanessa because I still feel like Lucy is somewhat younger than the rest of them. I would place Lucy solidly at the bottom (she's seemingly significantly younger than Robert, though she may be similar in age to the likes of Max and Sandra if you believe there to be a large age gap between Robert and the rest of the group).

[personinthepalace]

This is PPGW - Happy Opening Night to PPGW on the West End!

Song: This Is Daniel Cook

[personinthepalace]

PPGW Closing Night Pre-Show Shenanigans!!

Footage that I got from closing night! Everyone was out and about including people who usually don’t go out into the audience during the preshow - Sandra, Annie, and Max. All of the understudies were out as stagehands - Bren was in her Tessa outfit! Got to talk to Blair and Bartley who introduced himself as Rennis (Bartley covers for Dennis when Jon is out). Got to talk with Dennis and Max. Got yelled at by Chris. Trevor yelled at us about five times 😆. @icee-queens got pictures with Sandra while I got some with Jonathan!! (never going to recover from that haha). Truly the best night!!! Thank you so much to @icee-queens for joining me on this amazing adventure 💜

[personinthepalace]

How I imagine the human dogs haha:

what was your favorite part of legally blonde? and how do you think courtney was?

i hate to admit it but… the human dogs were the star of the show and i died everytime they were on stage.

also completely unintentional but it started lightly raining during take it like a man and the end was like a romance movie where they kiss in the rain but they obvs dont bc plot.

courtney was amazing !! very funny but thats as expected !! her voice was amazing and she held out that last smb note which will always be impressive to me. sometimes i felt like her presence was lost when other characters were on stage bc i thought the other characters were just SO well fitted to their roles (i havent seen as many ppl talk about anyone but court but they deserve all the credits!!) but overall she defo held her own and her elle was very cute and fun!!

the whole show lent more into the campier funnier side of the show but it worked very well with the cast so i think it was a good choice

[personinthepalace]

Prisoner by Harry Kershaw

Tonight is Harry's last show as the narrator in ppgw!!!

[personinthepalace]

PPGW but the crocodile snapped snapped the context - Happy Opening Night to Peter Pan on Broadway!

[personinthepalace]

Nancy singing the ppgw lullaby during rehearsals!

[personinthepalace]

Ellie is Legally Blonde!

[personinthepalace]

Dennis's Headset Compilation

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btw is there any posts abt what the old ppgw programme looks like bc i dont think ive ever seen

there's a couple of different copies of the 2015 west end programme floating around: there's this post from @savemefrommysolitude and a collection of posts (x x x x) from @cornleypolytechnicgoeswrong. there's also a copy of the programme from broadway this year from @personinthepalace (x x) but for some reason they got rid of most of the in-character stuff for broadway.

i got my pictures of the 2019/2020 uk tour programme from a friend so i haven't posted them on here yet, but i can if you'd like? however i'm like 90% sure it's the same as the current west end one just with a different cast. however as i said earlier, if anyone wants to post the current west end cast programme on here, i'd be very grateful. (edit: i just found some pictures of the west end programme from the discord and i can confirm that it's the exact same as the tour version, the only difference is the names of the asm's).

if anyone knows about any other copies of the ppgw programme on this website or just in general, please let me know because i love hoarding them!!!

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

okay so there is a massive fucking dilemma about when the play that goes wrong is set. (obviously, for the sake of just going and watching the show, it really does not matter. but it matters a lot to me personally, as someone who enjoys creating a cornley timeline in their spare time, so i will be overanalysing everything to the ends of the earth. godbless).

SO. here's my breakdown of all the things we know about when tptgw is. my goal is to make as many different pieces of lore fit as possible, but if in the end i get really desperately stuck, i am willing to say "hey this just messes eveything up" and get rid of it. also worth saying that all of this is literally just a direct stream of consciousness of me trying to figure it out for myself, so really, you're just coming along for the journey. therefore, if all of this is complete gibberish, apologies, i tried my best.

in the bbc peter pan goes wrong, trevor says that he's been the stage manager for cornley for about 5 years

this means it has to have been about 5 years since tptgw, since trevor wasn't the stage manager in this show. he only became stage manager when annie quit after tptgw. bbc ppgw aired on 31st december 2016. this means that tptgw has to be late 2011/early 2012. what qualifies as this depends on how relaxed you believe trevor's definition of "about 5 years" is.

in the tptgw program, the next item in the list of "upcoming cornley productions and events" is stated to be 13-17 january

this places tptgw as late one year or very early the next. this could support the above theory of being late 2011/early 2012, probably december or january.

in the tptgw script, chris welcomes the audience to the cornley polytechnic drama society's spring production of the murder at haversham manor.

this line is often omitted in stage performances given that tptgw is now performed throughout the entire year, but in both the 2nd and 3rd editions of the script, chris states that the production is taking place in spring — aka march, april or may. this obviously does not support the previous ideas about december/january. HOWEVER, if you're really willing to push it, here's an idea to make it work. this is just purely based off of my research of the british education system, so if i'm incorrect on any of this, i can only apologise and tell you that i've literally done my absolute best. also some of this info may seem basic to my british mutuals, but it was a lot to learn for me and therefore i will talk about it as if none of you know this.

so in england, the school year is broken into three terms — autumn, spring and summer. these are approximately broken up as so:

now as you may notice, the spring term actually starts in early january. when specifically in early january? i'm so glad you asked. in the 2011/2012 school year, aka our current hypothesis about when tptgw takes place, this is an overview of when the terms start and finish:

(this calendar, as stated, is specific to central bedfordshire, but i checked multiple different sources from multiple different universities and governments, and they're all about the exact same dates as this one. i've just chosen this particular one because it's easier for me to visualise it in this nice calendar form, rather than just being told the dates.)

so, the spring term in 2012 starts approximately on the 4th of january. this means that, potentially, tptgw could take place very early january, before the 13th when waiting for godot starts, while still being part of the spring academic term, and therefore, technically, a "spring production". while this does work on a technical level, i'm not a huge fan of this, purely because by "spring production" i envision it being a production they developed over the spring term, and then actually performed later in the term (eg march). it feels a bit weird for their "spring production" to kick off in the first of second week of the term. there ARE explanations for this. my best one is that after receiving max's donation later the previous year, chris managed to get them into the west end, and then worked the society throughout the holidays to get it ready by the very start of the next term. but then the phrasing of "spring production" feels weird, because it's not really a spring production anymore, because it's on the west end and now outside of the academic calendar.

the other way to get rid of this issue is to just discount either the spring production information or the upcoming events information. if you get rid of the spring production lore, you can easily just go back to having it in december 2011/january 2012 without the stress of trying to justify why chris calls it that. if you write off the upcoming events as some sort of mistake someone makes while creating the program (eg. copying and pasting the information, like i originally suggested), then you could easily say that tptgw was later in the spring term, like around march (which also just officially puts it in spring anyway), while still being early enough in the year for it to have been "almost 5 years" since trevor became the stage manager.

so that's that then? issue solved? unfortunately, no, because only today, i looked into a piece of lore i had overlooked.

in the tptgw program, cornley stole a review from the evening standard about the donmar warehouse's all female production of julius caesar, and pretended it was about their (presumably recent) production of hamlet.

now, for this to make sense, tptgw has to have taken place after this particular production ran and this review was written. wanna know when this is?

fucking 2013. immediate spanner in the works.

so then. how do we reconcile this. the biggest issue is obviously trevor's five year line, as if tptgw is in 2013, that leads to being about four years, at the most. so that's obviously a problem. but then, i got thinking. is it canon anywhere that tptgw is trevor's first show with the society? i think the "just doing it to get his electronics module" idea made me (and everyone else) automatically assume that it's his first show, but there's a possibility that he could have been involved in previous productions. obviously he wasn't the stage manager until after tptgw, but the possibilities are that:

he did some sort as an asm and therefore can claim he's been stage managing cornley for 5 years

he was still doing lighting and sound previously, but as we see in tptgw, he gets quite involved in stage stuff anyway, so maybe he just considered himself a stage manager there anyway.

so my running theory is that trevor was involved in the cpds during 2012, but then maybe left for a bit (maybe after a falling out with chris or something like that). then, he rejoined in tptgw to get the credits for his module in early 2013, and then stuck with them (obviously). as i said, i don't think there's much that could contradict trevor previously working in shows. the only one i can think of is this from the ppgw program:

which implies that tptgw was his first. however, i was already not particularly keen on accepting this as canon, just because, based on the amount of time between tptgw and ppgw, and based on the five years line, it would be weird for him NOT to be in shows in between. i haven't figured out exactly how to justify this, but it's one of those things that i just cannot accept as true. so we're ignoring it or finding an explanation for it (but later) and moving on!

so then. tptgw has to be after 11th january 2013 (when the evening standard review came out). this makes it hard to believe that tptgw took place before waiting for godot (13-17th january) because that leaves a two day gap for that program to be made. so i think we can safely decide that that particular piece of lore will have to be justified as a mistake that cornley themselves made in the program.

the spring production information actually fits very well with this new timeline, as it's a decent enough time apart that realistically, cornley could have found the review, pretended it was for hamlet, and then put it in the tptgw program. and then also, as i said, makes the timeline of the school term more realistic. they could have worked on tptgw all term as one of their spring productions (because with the number of shows we have listed as them doing, there must be several shows per term) before making it onto the west end. so, if we look at the 2012/2013 academic year calendar:

(this one is from brighton & hove city council, but once again, i checked multiple sources and this is the same as most others).

the spring term starts 7th january and goes until 28th march. therefore, i think it's reasonable to place tptgw as early march, since that puts in late in the term (giving them time to actually prepare the show, while also placing it in an actual month of spring).

SO, to sum up: i am placing tptgw as march 2013. the "upcoming cornley events" thing was an outdated copy of it that was placed in the program accidentally. trevor, while only officially gaining the position of "stage manager" after tptgw, previously worked with the cpds in roles that he considers to be enough to make him a "cornley stage manager" for about five years.

if you've made it this far, you're either as insane as i am (🤝) or you're a very loyal mutual (ily mwah). if anyone has any alternative ideas, theories, or suggestions, or you just want to tell me to get a life, my askbox and comments are open. remember, this is just my personal interpretation, and you do not have to agree with a single thing i said if you don't want to. canon is a construct. time is a construct. you can do whatever you want all the time. peace and love <3

me, literally only 8 hours ago: oh yeah cornley lore is flexible, you can make whatever work.

me right this second, trying to decipher this fucking timeline: if i don't make all of this make sense together i will literally combust.

[personinthepalace]

@incendiaglacies an alternative Rip Hunter edit