Following their recent West End smash hit, The Play that Goes Wrong, Mischief Theatre have returned with a new offering: Peter Pan goes Wrong. The play-within-a-play tells the story of a disastrous production of Peter Pan, staged by the hapless Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society.  The performance is a hilarious catastrophe from start to finish, superbly and energetically acted by the ten-strong-cast.

The (real) actors play a motley crew of melodramatic and accident-prone amateur thesps, who each portray multiple roles as the cast of Peter Pan.  Keen to distance themselves from calamitous earlier productions, the Drama Society assure the audience that this time the play will be carried off without a hitch.  However, within the first few minutes, an actor has to be sawn out of a door, the beds of the three Darling children collapse onto one another, and the sound effects are severely malfunctioning.

The show continues in this vein until the hysterical climax of act two in which technicians are unable to stop the stage from rotating, giving us a glimpse of the scandalous backstage life of the ‘cast’.  All of this plays out to the soundtrack of a pirate shanty sung by actors who helplessly revolve in and out of view. 

Beneath the farcical surface of this piece lies excellent direction and careful choreography. The writing is funny and original, and is complemented by the use of clever staging and set design. The humour at times feels a little samey, and two hours of slapstick and schadenfreude is probably as much as anyone can take. But don’t let that put you off- this is slapstick at its best. Cringes quickly gave way to giggles, and by the end of the first scene the audience was crying with laughter. This could well be the funniest piece of theatre around at the moment, delivered by a young and exciting group.

If you are suffering from post-Christmas overindulgence and an impending January-blues, grab a ticket to one of Mischief’s current productions. Peter Pan Goes Wrong is at the Pleasance Theatre in London until 5^th January, and The Play That Goes Wrong comes to the Oxford Playhouse from the 27^th January-1^st February.  You might just change your mind about slapstick. I know I did. 

The York Mystery Plays

The York Mystery Plays include a medieval nativity – a pre-cursor to the chaotic productions most people will remember from Primary School. They are a cycle of Middle-English pageants which detail Biblical events. They lasted so long that the time of day was in co-ordination with their position in the Bible – starting with Genesis and the creation story at sunrise, and ending with the Last Judgement at sunset. They were performed in York until 1569, but the Chester Mystery Plays still take place every five years with the most recent production in 2013.

The Annunciation – Fra Angelico

In San Marco Cathedral, Florence, as you go up the stairs into the dormitories of the monks, there is a sharp turn and immediately in front of you is this majestic fresco of Gabriel and the Virgin Mary; one of the best depictions of the first part of the Christmas story. The topic was incredibly fashionable in the Renaissance, though most position Mary leaning away from the Angel, in fear and apprehension. These paintings were filled with symbolic objects such as Mary’s weaving and lilies. The soft muted palate and the curiosity in Mary’s expression set it apart from many other annunciation scenes. This painting is far simpler; there is no external ornamentation in the room. Mary instead leans towards Gabriel, willingly accepting of her God’s wishes. Its calmness reflects the quietness and the ascetic nature of monastery itself where monks still live today.

On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity – John Milton

Milton wrote this poem on Christmas Day 1629. In it, he celebrates the way in which Christmas is celebrated in the same way every year and the joy and light bought to earth by the Baby Jesus and his “far-beaming blaze of majesty” Mostly Milton is known for his strict, puritanical leanings but this poem sets him beautifully apart from the Parliamentarians who wished to ban Christmas. 

The Adoration of the Magi – Morris & Co.

The Adoration of the Magi is the name traditionally given to the Nativity of Jesus in art, in which the three Magi, represented as three Kings, present Jesus with their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. There have been numerous artistic representations of the scene dating back to the 4^th Century. In 1886 the rector of Exeter College, Oxford, commissioned William Morris to make a tapestry to hang in their chapel. Edward Burne-Jones, one of the most prolific painters of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, delivered a preliminary sketch of the tapestry. The tapestry was woven ten times, and one of them can still be found in the chapel of Exeter College.

Bebe (The Nativity) – Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin was a post-impressionist, recognised for his bold and experimental use of colour. He was born in France, but his parents were from Peru. The culture and imagery of the country, and of the other countries he visited, would later influence his art. A trip to Tahiti to escape “everything that is artificial and conventional” was particularly important to the development of his style. This can be seen in his realisation of the nativity scene, in which the focus falls not on the baby Jesus, but on a Tahitian newborn in the forefront of the picture. The message, perhaps, is a comment on popular religion. Babies are being born all the time, each one equally special.

Santa – Coca Cola

Santa has been seen in Coke adverts since the 1920s. The brand has helped shape our impression of Santa as a jovial, plump and generous old man. Before he was often thin and scrooge like. Coke used the iconography of St Nicholas who was often portrayed in long red robes to inform their images.

Fairytale of New York – The Pogues & Kirsty McColl

Often cited the ‘best Christmas song of all time’ this is a poetic and tragic Christmas story. It begins in the drunk tank, where an old man’s song prompts the singer to reminisce about a more hopeful Christmas past which seems to be an American Dream story of two lovers, possibly Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine: ‘I can see a better time / When all our dreams come true’. The lyrics detail the progression from hope to misery as the lovers are consumed by alcohol and heroin. It is possibly based on the novel of the same name by J. P. Donleavy, about the emptiness that belies the hollow dream of a new life in New York City. The ultimate message, and the one which makes it Christmassy, is of sharing life with someone else: ‘Can’t make it all alone / I’ve built my dreams around you.’

The Invisible Christmas Tree – Tracy Emin

Tradition dictates that you take down your Christmas trees on twelfth night, the 5^th of January. But in 2002 the Tate had no need to do so. Every year they commission an artist to design a Christmas tree for Tate Britain. Tracy Emin decided to send her Christmas tree to Lighthouse West London, an HIV and Aids charity. In the main entrance hall, free of pine needles and baubles, visitors were instead left with a notice which encouraged them to send donations to the charity. This made the point that accumulation of material possessions should not motivate Christmas giving. Sometimes modern art is conceptual and irritating, this was the opposite: conceptual and worthwhile. 

★★☆☆☆

Two Stars

There is one word which perfectly sums up the Downton Abbey Christmas special, one word which entirely captures the experience of two supposedly drama-filled hours of Lady Mary and the rest of the gang. That word is meh. I’m sorry to use an internet-derived colloquialism, but it really was just so very, very meh. It was bland, boring, and completely underwhelming. Yet to be fair to dear old Downton, while this isn’t glowing praise, perhaps it isn’t the worst thing in the world either.

The Christmas special this year saw our favourite bunch of over-privileged, well-dressed and slightly dippy English gentry come to London for Lady Rose’s coming-out and presentation as a debutante, set once again, very glaringly, not at Christmas. Effort was made to tidy up one or two story lines (most notably the possibility that Mr Bates might have committed murder) but on the whole the aim seems to have been to create drama in all other areas, maintaining interest for Season 5. The attempt was not exactly successful.

Lady Cora’s family come over from America on the flimsiest of pretexts, in the hope of injecting some ‘sass’ into proceedings (and some new money/old money conflict) and while Shirley Mclaine was on fine form when sparring with the ever excellent Maggie Smith, one fails to care even slightly about the American contingent. The one good thing to come out of the Christmas special was that, for the first time in ages, Daisy got a storyline which actually resulted in her smiling, for which we are all thankful.

I failed to maintain interest in any of the other story lines, including some shenanigans with a philandering royal (I assume the soon-to-abdicate Prince Edward), Lady Mary’s endless revolving door of suitors, Mrs Hughes’ attempts to prevent Carson from dragging the entire staff round a London museum, and Lady Edith’s illegitimate child. Part of my problem with the special was that my patience for Downton has been sapped by the overall tiresomeness of Season 4 – TV which has been at times really bad, and at others downright offensive. These storylines were wrapped up about eight weeks ago, and dragging them on seems cruel to all parties, not least the exceptionally talented cast who look increasingly like they might envy the dear departed Dan Stevens.

So in a way, for the Christmas Special to be merely ‘meh’ is an improvement; at least it didn’t have me throwing things at my screen, and there were some rather fun moments. But when you consider the former glories of Christmas specials gone by, kisses in the snow, genuinely tense courtroom drama, and lashings of festive cheer, you know that Downton can, and should, do better. The dresses are still very pretty, but this has undeniably become a show which is all style, and very little substance. 

Tucked away in a corner of the British Library, amidst the heavy classics and ancient manuscripts, is a delicate exhibition celebrating ten iconic children’s stories. Each has been illustrated and re-illustrated for different generation – this exhibition explores how the story of these stories can be told through their pictures.

It seems paradoxical somehow that adults are allowed to impart their prejudices and preconceptions onto books which, really, ought to have no agenda but to delight. Add to this the fact that the ten classics explored in this exhibition are probably being increasingly forsaken by modern children for something faster-paced, and seeing them on display behind glass could easily feel as though the adults are claiming them – placing them on the top shelf away from sticky fingers.

It is a testament to the exhibition then, that it manages to turn all of these paradoxes into something beautiful and sharply analytical, yet simple enough to avoid feeling that the British Library have allowed adults into Neverland. It is not just a celebration of illustrations as artwork – it is an analysis of the integral nature of illustration to children’s storytelling, purposefully revealing as much about the books the illustrations feature in as it does about the nature and creation of the images themselves.

In a relatively small space, the exhibition showcases a huge range of illustrative techniques, from Ian Beck’s delicate watercolours for Peter Pan to the charming spontenaity of Lauren Child’s scrapbooking (because she’s ‘not very good at making decisions’) for her edition of The Secret Garden. The display on Ted Hughes’ Iron Giant contrasts Laura Carlin’s ‘amorphus paper cut-out colossus’ with Andrew Davidson’s woodcuts, equally threatening in their human realism – thus showing the way each interpretation draws out a different side of the Giant’s character.

Video interviews with the artists also provide an insight into their differing work patterns and cultural influences. David Roberts speaks of how his background in fashion design influenced his illustrations for The Wind in the Willows, and the way in which he tried to incorporate contemporary art and pattern into his design for the book. The fact that the story itself has no obvious connection to art deco is an example on the way that illustrations can bring to light aspects of a text and its cultural background which we didn’t know were there.

This exhibition at the BL acknowledges illustrators as artists, who breathe life into characters so familiar to us. It also celebrates the fact that each time these texts are illustrated it marks a rejuvenation for a modern audience, rendering these classics timeless in a very real sense – enabling them to be constantly reinvented and reshaped as something new.