Lost Boy
Book, Music and Lyrics by Phil Willmott. Arrangements and Additional Music by Mark Collins.
Book, Music and Lyrics by Phil Willmott. Arrangements and Additional Music by Mark Collins.
Lost Boy is a dark sequel to Peter Pan that explores how childhood experiences shape adulthood against the backdrop of the First World War.
About The Play
About The Play
And at Charing Cross Theatre
Monday, 13 January – Saturday, 15 February 2014
THE ENTIRE FINBOROUGH RUN OF LOST BOY IS NOW COMPLETELY SOLD OUT.
Please book for the Charing Cross Theatre transfer run
Part of the Finborough Theatre’s Celebrating British Music Theatre and THEGREATWAR100 series
A stirring, controversial and unexpected opening to a year commemorating the centenary of the Great War, the world premiere of Lost Boy, a new British musical from Phil Willmott – following the huge success of his musical Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi, in Liverpool, London and the USA.
A dark sequel to Peter Pan reuniting J. M. Barrie’s characters as young adults on the eve of the First World War.
How has their extraordinary childhood equipped them for reality?
And how much does the child we were inform the adult we become?
Peter Pan was the Harry Potter of the golden age of Edwardian children’s literature. Tickets to Barrie’s play and copies of the book sold in huge quantities with hardly a nursery in the Empire left untouched by the phenomenon. But when those children grew to adulthood, the world they encountered was a far cry from the utopia of Never Never Land.
How did exposure to J. M. Barrie’s masterpiece equip an army of frightened young men to deal with the horrors of trench warfare…and the complexities of grown up relationships?
The culture clash between the enchantment of childhood fantasy and real life provides a rich vein for humour and drama as this original story explores the hopes and dreams of one particular young officer on the eve of battle with a copy of Peter Pan in his pocket. As sleep begins to blur his dreams and reality, fact and fiction become entangled and he finds himself central to one final “awfully big adventure” with the grown-up Wendy, John, Michael and Tinker Bell.
Willmott’s original songs – blending a contemporary music theatre style with music hall influences – have been arranged into a score with additional music by Mark Collins, Assistant Musical Director on the West End production of Billy Elliot The Musical (Victoria Palace Theatre) whose recent work in new musical theatre writing includes Dougal Irvine’s The Other School (St James’ Theatre for National Youth Music Theatre), Wah! Wah! Girls (Kneehigh and Sadler’s Wells at Leicester Curve, Peacock Theatre, London and UK Tour) and Rifco’s Britain’s Got Bhangra (Theatre Royal, Stratford East and UK Tour).