FIRST things first; Peter Pan and Wendy, now running in Pitlochry, is not a panto. It’s a Christmas play. “There are about 65 pages of dialogue and there are proper songs,” says, actor Colin McCredie, smiling. “And yes, it’s bookended by Christmas, but really it’s a play that could be performed at any time.”

This brand new adaptation of the classic JM Barrie story by Janys Chambers sees McCredie play both Mr Darling and then Captain Hook. “It’s set in a timeless frame – it could be 1917 or it could be now. And it’s very true to the spirit of JM Barrie’s story, the idea of children not wanting to grow up, to have fun and play.

“A lot of what happens in Barrie’s story is dark, with children being kidnapped, and it would be easy to think of [the disappearance of ] Madeleine McCann, for instance, but we’re trying not to bring in the pessimism of the world around us. What we want to do is present the story as being joyful, whereby the kids on stage just really want to have fun.”

The Perth-born actor adds: “For that reason, I’m not playing Hook as a psychopath. I’m playing him as if he’s taking part in a game.

“He and Peter Pan fight, for example, but then come out to play with each other the following day. Yes, Hook is evil, but he’s humorous as well, so I want to bring out the fun in him. I can see him as an Alan Rickman-like Sheriff of Nottingham type.”

Or perhaps Andy Gray, the late great comedy actor, also from Perth, who was an inspiration to the young McCredie when he attended drama classes as a boy? “Oh, yes. But perhaps not as funny as Andy because no-one could be that good.”

For the role, McCredie has had to re-learn the sword-fighting skills he developed at drama school. “There is also some lovely flying to be done and learning some really Gaelic-influenced nice songs.”

The former Taggart star, who played Michael in the Perth Theatre production of Peter Pan in 1985 aged 13, alongside comedy legend Rikki Fulton, Maureen Carr and Forbes Masson, is returning to Pan for the first time. A stage veteran, in fact? “Yes, I suppose I am,” he grins. “There are lots of great, really talented young actors in the play, and I suppose my job is to share anecdotes from the likes of [Taggart star] Alex Norton and play them off as my own.”

Colin McCredie believes it’s the duty of theatre, particularly at this moment in time, to send audiences, young and old, home with smiles on their faces.

“This is the right show to make that happen,” he laughs. “I’ve just come home from rehearsals, having played a man who has just fallen into a giant crocodile and been eaten.

“That’s the sort of fun we need to see at the moment. We need to have joy in our lives.”

Peter Pan and Wendy, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, until December 23 also features former River City star Deirdre Davis

 

Don’t Miss: Aladdin, at the Beacon Arts Centre in Greenock, starring Still Game’s Jane McCarry and Mark Cox, River City’s Jimmy Chisholm and Lee Samuel. December 9-31.

AH, Paris in the roaring 20s: a time of decadence, when artistic peaks and high jinks combined to reach Eiffel Tower heights.

What happens when an artist’s muse is also an artist? This power dynamic is explored in Kiki, the funny, poignant story of Alice Prin – better known as Kiki de Montparnasse, lover and model of the artist, Man Ray. With music by Hilary Brooks and words by Clive King, we learn how when the pair first met it was Kiki who was selling out exhibitions. She used her jazz age notoriety as a nude model and singer to become famous.

Man Ray, the American Emmanuel Radnitzky, who relocated to France, would go on to become a celebrated surrealist photographer, filmmaker and painter. But that wasn’t so when the pair first met. “A big driver in their relationship was professional jealousy,” says King. “We explore the tensions between the muse and the artist. He is desperate for recognition, but he can’t turn a corner in Paris without seeing a poster with her face on it – and it starts to drive him a little bit mad. It would be very easy to write Kiki as the stereotypical good-time girl, but we portray her as a woman with limited agency, but a desire for agency.”

The play begins, rather dramatically in 1953 with Kiki on her deathbed, and flashes between different points in her relationship with Man Ray. The idea for such a framing device came about when King himself was deemed to be on his deathbed, having suffered a spinal stroke. “I don’t think I would have had the idea of framing it around a delirium episode if I hadn’t had the experience of emerging from a coma,” he says pointedly.

Christine Bovill features as Kiki and John Jack as Man Ray. in Kiki, Oran Mor, Glasgow, til Saturday