Peter Pan Full Script in Progress

Peter Pan Exeter College Rehearsal Script

Peter Pan – Barnfield Theatre Rehearsal Script

Opening Song: Never

Never (tick)
Never (tock)
Never (tick)
Never (tock)
Never ever leave this place behind,
This warm and lamp lit comforting room;
Never ever leave and go outside
Into the smog and gathering gloom;
Never ever heed the sound of the bell
Calling us all to rise and leave;
Never ever quit this cosy cell
Of hopes and dreams and make believe;
Never!
Time is the enemy; time is the curse;
Each day threatening worse and worse;
Never grow older, never grow tall,
Never ever ever change (at all)
Never have a husband or wife let’s vow,
Never have children, we’re children now,
Never go to work, never be a slave,
Never take one step closer to the grave,
1
Never…
Dance Break
Perhaps if we stay here, closing our eyes
And laying our hands up over our ears,
We can shut out the world outside,
And halt the ever-advancing years;
Perhaps if we count and run and hide,
Perhaps we can, perhaps we will each one of us
Stay forever a child, and time will stand
Perfectly still, and time will stand
Perfectly still, and time will stand
Perfectly still...
Twitchers 1, 2, & 3 enter
Day one. Log: the children’s bedroom of the darling family household sits atop of a rather depressed
street in Bloomsbury, who’s top window (the important one); overlooks a leafy square, where peter
used to fly up to it and watch the little family play--
To the delight of the children
And no doubt the irritation of passers by.
The family has long since gone, and although a lick of paint has been applied, the home has not
changed.
Though the card now states ‘no children’
Maybe the comings and goings of Wendy and her siblings have given the house a bad name.
This is what we call the darling house, and if you think it was your house you are very probably right
The blind (which is what peter would have called the theatre curtain if he had ever seen one) rises
in that top room, a shabby little thing. .
You know, it’s a rather nice house for a family of their class.
2
Yeah, Martin must have spent hours matching the decor with his caring heart
And the scrapings of his bank account.
Ooh have you seen those bedsheets? They’re stunning!
I think he made them from their old wedding suits.
(General agreement)
“Hold on – is that?”.
Mr Darling enters.
Shh! Watch
Says his two lines
“I wish he hadn’t spun in quite like a tornado”
“at least he’s well dressed...”
MAGGIE (obstreperous). I won't go to bed, I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six o'clock yet. Two minutes
more, please, one minute more? Nana, I won't go bath, I tell you I will not go in the bath!
MARTIN DARLING. And who are you?
WENDY (histrionically). We are doing an act; we are playing at being you and father. (He imitates the
only father who has come under her special notice.) A little less noise there.
JAY Now let us pretend we have a baby.
WENDY (good-naturedly). I am happy to inform you, Martin Darling, that you are now a Father. (JAY
gives way to ecstasy.) You have missed the chief thing; you haven't asked, 'boy or girl?'
JAY (tuts) I am so glad to have one at all, I don't care which it is.
WENDY (crushingly). That is just the difference between gentlemen and ladies. Alexa, what’s the
difference between gentlemen and ladies? Now you tell me. (Alexa replies)
JAY I am happy to acquaint you, Mr Darling, you are now a father.
WENDY Boy or girl?
JAY. (Tuts.)
JAY (POINTS AT WENDY). Girl.
WENDY. You meanie. Go on.
JAY I am happy to acquaint you, Mr Darling, you are again a father.
WENDY Boy or girl?
JAY Boy, girl, does it matter? (JAY beams grins and then tuts.) Fiiine, a boy.
WENDY Daddy, it's horrible of him.
3
MAGGIE (expanding). Now, have me.
JAY. We don't want any more.
MAGGIE (contracting). Am I not to be born at all?
JAY. Two is enough.
MAGGIE (wheedling). Come on Jay. (Appalled) Nobody wants me!
MARTIN. DARLING. I do.
MAGGIE (with a glimmer of hope). Boy or girl?
MARTIN. DARLING (with one of those happy thoughts of his). Girl.
GEORGE DARLING (implying that he has searched for him everywhere and that the nursery is a
strange place in which to find him). Oh, there you are, Martin.
MARTIN. DARLING (knowing at once what is the matter). What is the matter, George dear?
GEORGE DARLING (as if the word were monstrous). Matter! This tie, it will not tie. (He waxes
sarcastic.) Not round my neck. Round the bed-post, oh yes; twenty times have I made it up round
the bed-post, but round my neck, oh dear no; It refuses!
MAGGIE (in a joyous transport). Do it again, George, do it again!
GEORGE DARLING (witheringly). Thank you. (Goaded by a suspiciously crooked smile on MARTIN
DARLING'S face) I warn you, Martin, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner
to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the
office again you and I starve, and our children will be thrown into the streets.
MARTIN DARLING. Let me try, dear.
JAY (rebellious). I won't have a bath. Don’t even think about it!
GEORGE DARLING (in the grand manner). Go and be bathed at once child.
MAGGIE (as he is put between the sheets). Daddy, how did you get to know me?
GEORGE DARLING. A little less noise there.
MAGGIE (growing solemn). At what time was I born, Dad?
MARTIN DARLING. At two o'clock in the night-time, dearest.
MAGGIE. Oh, Daddy, I hope I didn't wake you.
MARTIN DARLING. They are rather sweet, don't you think, George?
GEORGE DARLING (doting). There is not their equal on earth, and they are ours!
GEORGE DARLING. Martin, it is too bad; just look at this; covered in glitter. Clumsy, clumsy!
MARTIN. DARLING. Let me brush you, dear.
GEORGE DARLING (depressed). I sometimes think, Martin, that it is a mistake to have a robot
running our lives.
4
MARTIN. DARLING. George, Alexa is a treasure.
GEORGE DARLING. No doubt; but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the children
as slaves.
MARTIN. DARLING (rather faintly). Oh no, dear one, I am sure she knows they have souls.
GEORGE DARLING (profoundly). I wonder, I wonder.
MARTIN. DARLING. George, we must keep Alexa. I will tell you why. (His seriousness impresses him.)
My dear, when I came into this room to-night I saw a face at the window.
GEORGE DARLING (incredulous). A face at the window, three floors up? Pooh!
MARTIN. DARLING. It was the face of a little child; he was trying to get in. George, this is not the first
time I have seen that child.
GEORGE DARLING (beginning to think that this may be a man's job). Oho!
MARTIN. DARLING (making sure that MAGGIE does not hear). The first time was a week ago. Alexa
was on charge, and I had been drowsing here by the fire when suddenly I felt a draught, as if the
window were open. I looked round and I saw that child—in the room.
GEORGE DARLING. In the room?
MARTIN. DARLING. I screamed. Just then Alex’s security alarm went off. The child leapt for the
window. Alexa tried locking the window but was too slow.
GEORGE DARLING (who knows he would not have been too late). I thought so!
MARTIN. DARLING. Wait. The child escaped, but his shadow had not time to get out; down came the
window and cut it clean off.
GEORGE DARLING (heavily). Martin, Martin, why didn't you keep that shadow?
MARTIN. DARLING (scoring). I did. I rolled it up, George; and here it is.
GEORGE DARLING. It is nobody I know, but he does look a scoundrel.
MARTIN. DARLING. I think he comes back to get his shadow, George...Thank you Liza, that wil be all
GEORGE DARLING (meaning that the miscreant has now a father to deal with). I dare say. (He sees
himself telling the story to the other stools at the office.) There is money in this, my love. I’ll put it up
on e-bay tomorrow for a bid.
MARTIN. DARLING (like a guilty person). George, I have not told you all; I am afraid to.
GEORGE DARLING (who knows exactly the right moment to treat a loved one as a beloved child).
Cowardy, cowardy custard.
MARTIN. DARLING (pouting). No, I'm not.
GEORGE DARLING. Oh yes, you are.
MARTIN. DARLING. George, I 'm not.
GEORGE DARLING. Then why not tell? (Thus cleverly soothed he goes on.)
5
MARTIN. DARLING. The child as not alone that first time. He was accompanied by—I don't know
how to describe it; by a ball of light, not as big as my fist, but it darted about the room like a living
thing.
GEORGE DARLING (though open-minded). That is very peculiar. It escaped with the child?
MARTIN. DARLING. Yes. (Sliding her hand into his.) George, what can all this mean?
GEORGE DARLING (ever ready). What indeed!
ALEXA Reminder for 6.15. Medicine.
MARTIN. DARLING (at once dissembling). Ah, of course; Maggie, time for your medicine.
MAGGIE (promptly). Won't take it.
GEORGE DARLING (recalling his youth). Set an example, Maggie.
MAGGIE. Won't.
MARTIN. DARLING (weakly). I'll get you a lovely chocky to take after it. (He leaves the room, though
his husband calls after him.)
GEORGE DARLING. Martin, don't pamper her. When I was your age, Maggie, I took medicine without
a murmur. I said, 'Thank you, kind parents, for giving me bottles to make me well.'
WENDY. That medicine you sometimes take is much nastier, isn't it, father?
GEORGE DARLING (valuing her support). Ever so much nastier. And as an example to you, Maggie, I
would take it now (thankfully) if I hadn't lost the bottle.
WENDY (always glad to be of service). I know where it is, George. I'll fetch it.
GEORGE DARLING. (to Jay) It is the most beastly stuff. It is that sticky sweet kind.
JAY (who is perhaps still playing at parents). Never mind, George, it will soon be over.
WENDY. Here it is, George; I have been as quick as I could.
GEORGE DARLING (with a sarcasm that is completely thrown away on her). You have been
wonderfully quick, precious quick!
WENDY (proudly, as she pours out GEORGE DARLING'S medicine). Maggie, now you will see how
George takes it.
GEORGE DARLING (hedging). Maggie first.
MAGGIE (full of unworthy suspicions). George first.
GEORGE DARLING. It will make me sick, you know.
JAY (lightly). Come on, George.
GEORGE DARLING. Quiet, you rascal.
WENDY (disturbed). I thought you took it quite easily, George, saying 'Thank you kind parents, for—'
GEORGE DARLING. That is not the point; the point is that there is more in my glass than in Maggie's
spoon. It isn't fair, I swear though it were with my last breath, it is not fair.
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MAGGIE (coldly). George, I'm waiting.
GEORGE DARLING. It's all very well to say you are waiting; as am I waiting.
MAGGIE. He's a cowardy custard.
GEORGE DARLING. So are you a cowardy custard.
WENDY Alexa, what’s a cowardy custard?
ALEXA Here’s what I found on the internet. “ a cowardly person (often used as a taunt by children).”
MAGGIE. I am not frightened.
GEORGE DARLING. Neither am I frightened.
MAGGIE. Well, then, take it.
GEORGE DARLING. Well, then, you take it.
WENDY (butting in again). Why not take it at the same time?
GEORGE DARLING (haughtily). Certainly. Are you ready, Maggie?
WENDY (as nothing has happened). One—two—three.
JAY. George hasn't taken his!
WENDY (inexpressibly pained). Oh George!
GEORGE DARLING (who has been hiding the glass behind him). What do you mean by 'oh George?
Stop that row, Maggie. I meant to take mine but I— I --missed it. They are all looking as if they did
not admire him, and nothing so dashes a temperamental man.) I say, I have just thought of a
splendid joke. (They brighten.) I shall pour my medicine into Daddy’s glass, and he will drink it
thinking it is milk! (The pleasantry does not appeal, but he prepares the joke, listening for
appreciation.)
WENDY. Poor Daddy!
GEORGE DARLING. You silly little things; to your beds everyone of you; I am ashamed of you.
MARTIN. DARLING. Well, is it all over?
MAGGIE. George didn't——(George glares.)
GEORGE DARLING. All over, dear, quite satisfactory. (Martin Reaches for the glass, the children
snigger.) I topped your milk back up dear... (MARTIN is about to drink from the glass but ALEXA starts
speaking/malfunctioning)
MARTIN. DARLING. What is the matter with Alexa?
GEORGE DARLING (uneasily). Nothing, nothing.
MARTIN. DARLING (smelling the glass). George, this is your medicine!
GEORGE DARLING. It was only a joke. Much good my wearing myself to the bone trying to be funny
in this house.
ALEXA Setting your nickname to joke. Here’s what I found on the internet for – Joke (insert bad joke)
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WENDY (Alexa carries on speaking nonsense, Wendy goes to see what is the matter). Dad, Alexa is
broken.
GEORGE DARLING. Yeah yeah take her side. You’d choose the robot over me any day. I bring in the
only source of income in this house, why shouldn’t I get any credit? Why, why, why, why, why?
MARTIN. DARLING. George, not so loud; the neighbours will hear you.
GEORGE DARLING (defiant). Let them hear me; let the whole world hear me! (The desperate man,
who has not been in fresh air for days, has now lost all self-control.) I refuse to allow that thing to
lord it in my house for one hour longer. (Alexa gets louder and louder with the children trying to talk
to her and stop her, chaos is emerging, with the children saying things like ‘Dad, I think Alexa is
broken’ and ‘Hey Alexa, be quiet’.) Stop, just stop, its useless! The proper place for it is in the bin,
and there you go this instant.
MARTIN. DARLING (who knows how contrite he will be for this presently). George, George,
remember what I told you about that child.
GEORGE DARLING. Am I master in this house or is it? (To ALEXA fiercely) That’s it (He thunders
across the stage,) OUT (unplugs the device. The word disconnected echoes in the sudden silence. )
MARTIN DARLING Be brave my dears.
WENDY He is throwing Alexa in the bin!
JAY (as the beeping below goes on). She is awfully unhappy.
WENDY. That is not Alexa's unhappy alarm. That is her alarm when she detects danger.
MARTIN. DARLING (remembering that child). Danger! Are you sure, Wendy?
WENDY (the one of the family, for there is one in every family, who can be trusted to know or not to
know). Oh yes.
JAY. Is anything there?
MARTIN. DARLING. All quite quiet and still. Oh, how I wish I was not going out to dinner to-night.
MAGGIE. Can anything harm us, Father, after the night-lights are lit?
MARTIN DARLING Nothing precious. They are the eyes a parent leaves behind them to guard their
children.
MR DARLING: The Darling Lullaby – Tidying Minds
Slumber my children, now slumber my dears,
Clear away thoughts of all terrors and fears;
Let no dark shadows come creep in the night,
Sleep, oh my children sleep fast and sleep tight,
Sleep fast and sleep tight.
8
Rock-a-by babies, so high in the tree,
Wendy and Maggie and Jay, all three;
When the bough breaks, do not worry at all;
Feather and down will cushion your fall,
Will cushion your fall;
For your pillows are soft, and your eiderdowns warm,
And your mother will guard you from peril and harm
And your eyelids are heavy with sleep,
Sleep now my children sleep long and sleep deep,
Sleep long and sleep deep.
(Ahhhhh ahhhh ahhh) (oOOo oOOo)
Dream not of pirates and far-a-way lands,
And fairies that sit in the palm of your hand;
Dream not of mermaids that sing from the rock;
Hear only the sound of the nursery clock…
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
Hear only the sound of the nursery clock.
Four
Three
Two
One…
9
… and the day is gone. This line to delivered just by MARTIN
PETER (in a whisper). Tinker Bell, Tink, are you there? (A jug lights up.) Oh, do come out of that jug.
(TINK flashes hither and thither?) Do you know where they put it? (The answer comes as of a tinkle
of bells; it is the fairy language. PETER can speak it, but it bores him.) Which big box? This one? But
which drawer? Yes, do show me.
WENDY (courteously). Child, why are you crying?
PETER. What is your name?
WENDY (well satisfied). Wendy Moira Angela Darling. What is yours?
PETER (finding it lamentably brief). Peter Pan.
WENDY. Is that all...
WENDY. Where do you live?
PETER. Second to the right and then straight on till morning.
WENDY. What a funny address!
PETER. No, it isn't.
WENDY. I mean, is that what they put on the letters?
PETER. Don't get any letters.
WENDY. But your family gets letters?
PETER. Don't have a family.
WENDY. Peter!
PETER. You mustn't touch me.
WENDY. Why?
PETER. No one must ever touch me.
WENDY. Why?
PETER. I don't know.
WENDY. No wonder you were crying.
PETER. I wasn't crying. But I can't get my shadow to stick on.
WENDY. It has come off! How awful. (Looking at the spot where he had lain.) Peter, you have been
trying to stick it on with soap!
PETER (snappily). Well then?
WENDY. It must be sewn on.
10
PETER. What is 'sewn'?
WENDY. You are dreadfully ignorant.
PETER. No, I 'm not.
WENDY. I will sew it on for you. But we must have more light. (She touches something, and to his
astonishment the room is illuminated.) Sit here. I dare say it will hurt a little.
PETER (a recent remark of hers rankling). I never cry. (She seems to attach the shadow. He tests the
combination.) It isn't quite itself yet.
WENDY. Perhaps I should have ironed it. (It awakes and is as glad to be back with him as he to have
it. He and his shadow dance together. He is showing off now. He crows like a cock. He would fly in
order to impress WENDY further if he knew that there is anything unusual in that.)
PETER. Wendy, look, look; oh the cleverness of me!
WENDY. You conceit, of course I did nothing!
PETER. You did a little.
WENDY (wounded). A little! I am not playing with you anymore.
PETER. Wendy. Don't go. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with myself. Wendy, one of
you is worth more than twenty of me.
WENDY (peeping over the sheet). You really think so, Peter?
PETER. Yes, I do.
WENDY. I think it's perfectly sweet of you, and I shall get up again. (They sit together on the side of
the bed.) I shall give you a kiss if you like.
PETER. Thank you. (He holds out his hand.)
WENDY (aghast). Don't you know what a kiss is?
PETER. I shall know when you give it me. (Not to hurt his feelings she gives him her thimble.) Now
shall I give you a kiss?
WENDY (primly). If you please. (He pulls an acorn button off his person and bestows it on her. She is
shocked but considerate.) I will wear it on this chain round my neck. Peter, how old are you?
PETER (blithely). I don't know, but quite young, Wendy. I ran away the day I was born.
WENDY. Ran away, why?
PETER. Because I heard father talking of what I was to be when I grow up. I want always to be a child
and to have fun; so I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long time among the fairies.
WENDY (with great eyes). You know fairies, Peter!
PETER (surprised that this should be a recommendation). Yes, but they are nearly all dead now.
(Baldly) You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a
thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now
when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. I can't think where she has gone. Tinker
Bell, Tink, where are you?
11
WENDY (thrilling). Peter, you don't mean to tell me that there is a fairy in this house!
PETER (flitting about in search). She came with me. You don't hear anything, do you? Wendy, I
believe I have lost her.
TASH rattles draw and throws ball to BILLY who is DSR
(TINK runs in, she had got lost exploring the house)
You needn't say that; I'm very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?
BILLY bounces ball over WENDYS head to TASH
WENDY (her eyes dancing in pursuit of the delicious creature). Peter, if only she would stand still and
let me see her!
PETER (indifferently). They hardly ever stand still.
WENDY. I see her!
TASH throws ball upstage left to AILSA who throws to CHARLOTTE/MABEL upstage centre
where is she now?
CHARLOTTE/MABEL throws ball dowstage to TASH who has run forward to catch it
TASH throws it back to BILLY
PETER. She is behind the clock. Tink, this lady wishes you were her fairy. (The answer comes
immediately.)
BILLY throws to TASH
WENDY. What does she say?
PETER. She is not very polite. She says you are a great ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.
TASH throws to PETER
PETER throws to CHARLOTTE/MABEL who throws to AILSA who throws to TASH who bounces ball up
and down
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WENDY. What does she mean?
PETER. She said 'You silly ass.'
TASH throws to BILLY
She is quite a common girl, you know. She is called Tinker Bell because she mends the fairy pots and
kettles.
WENDY. Where do you live now?
PETER. With the lost boys.
WENDY. Who are they?
PETER. They are the children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way. If
they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Never-Land. I 'm captain.
WENDY. What fun it must be.
PETER. They are the children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way. If
they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Never-Land. I'm captain.
WENDY. What fun it must be. It is perfectly lovely the way you talk of this place. Peter, you may give
me a kiss.
PETER (cynically). I thought you would want it back. (He offers her the thimble.)
WENDY (artfully). Oh dear, I didn't mean a kiss, Peter. I meant a thimble.
PETER (only half placated). What is that?
WENDY. It is like this. (She leans forward to give a demonstration, but something prevents the
meeting of their faces.)
PETER (satisfied). Now shall I give you a thimble?
WENDY. If you please. (Before he can even draw near she screams.) TASH throw ball at WENDY
PETER. What is it?
WENDY. It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hair!
PETER. That must have been Tink. I never knew her to be so naughty before.
WENDY. What does she say?
PETER. She says she will do that every time I give you a thimble.
WENDY. But why?
PETER (equally nonplussed). Why, Tink? (He has to translate the answer.) She said 'You silly ass'
again.
13
TASH throws to BILLY
WENDY. She is very impertinent. (They are sitting on the floor now.) Peter, why did you come to our
nursery window?
BILLY throws TINK out of window and CHARLOTTE/MABEL catches and takes it off stage
PETER. To try to hear stories. None of us knows any stories.
WENDY. How perfectly awful!
PETER. Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories. Wendy,
your father was telling you such a lovely story.
WENDY. Which story was it?
PETER. About the prince, and he couldn't find the lady who wore the glass slipper.
WENDY. That was Cinderella. Peter, he found her and they were happy ever after.
PETER. I am glad. (They have worked their way along the floor close to each other, but he now jumps
up.)
WENDY. Where are you going?
PETER (already on his way to the window). To tell the other boys.
WENDY. Don't go, Peter. I know lots of stories. The stories I could tell to the boys!
PETER (gleaming). Come on! We'll fly.
WENDY. Fly? You can fly!
PETER. Wendy, come with me.
WENDY. Oh dear, I mustn't. Think of mother. Besides, I can't fly.
PETER. I'll teach you.
WENDY. How lovely to fly!
PETER. I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back and then away we go. Wendy, when you are
sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me, saying funny things to the stars. There
are mermaids, Wendy, with long tails. (She just succeeds in remaining on the nursery floor.) Wendy,
how we should all respect you.
WENDY. Of course it's awfully fascinating! Would you teach the little ones to fly too?
PETER (indifferently). If you like.
WENDY (playing rum-turn on Jay). Wake up; we are to learn how to fly.
JAY. Is there? Then I shall get up. (He raises his head from the floor.) Hullo, I am up!
14
WENDY. Maggie, open your eyes. This kid is to teach us to fly.
JAY. I say, can you really fly.
JAY (rubbing their knees). How do you do it?
PETER You just think lovely wonderful thoughts and they lift you up in the air.
JOHN. Okay, I 've got it now, Wendy. Let me try. (He tries; no, he has not got it, poor stay-at-home,
though he knows the names of all the counties in England and PETER does not know one.)
PETER. I must blow the fairy dust on you first. (Fortunately his garments are smeared with it and he
blows some dust on each.) Now, try; try from the bed. Just wiggle your shoulders this way, and then
let go.
MAGGIE (with a yell). I flewed!
WENDY. Wow, I don’t believe it.
JAY (tending to be upside down). How ripping!
MAGGIE (playing whack on a chair). I do like it!
THE THREE. Look at me, look at me, look at me!
JAY (who can even go backwards). I say, why shouldn't we go out?
PETER. There are pirates.
JAY Pirates! (He grabs his tall Sunday hat.) Let us go at once!
PETER (as if he had heard the star whisper 'Cave'). Now come!
STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING
Over the hills, over the trees,
over the branches and rustling leaves,
Going so fast you wouldn’t believe,
Over the gables and over the eaves,
I can’t believe that it’s actually me!
All you need to do is believe and you’ll be flying;
All you need to do is believe and you’ll be straight onto morning,
15
Peter, teach me to fly,
I want to live all my life in the sky
and be free to do as I please,
free from the chains of humanity,
onwards and straight onto morning.
Fly through the night, fly the wind,
Leave all your cares and your worries behind
Fly like a bird, seems so absurd,
Casting all fears and doubts from your mind,
What will we do?
What will we see?
Now that we’ve left all the grown-ups behind?
Onwards we go, no looking back
When we’re in Neverland what will find?
All you need to do is believe and you’ll be flying;
All you need to do is believe and you’ll be straight onto morning,
Peter, teach me to fly,
I want to live all my life in the sky
and be free to do as I please,
free from the chains of gravity,
Over the hills, over the trees, onwards and straight onto morning.
16
Act 2
Twitchers
T4: Day 17: Log 2: We have now arrived in Neverland. The journey was some what unusual, but the
arrival even stranger.
T1: Of all the detectable islands, Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, with astonishing
splashes of colour and a beautiful lagoon, and a forest beyond – not large and sprawly, but nicely
crammed.
T2: It is summer on the streets and lagoon, but winter on the river.
T3: Strange.
T4: Not as strange as you’d think, Four seasons can pass before you could fill a cup.
T2: Peter was on his way back and the neverland had again woke to life.
T3: In his absence things are usually quiet on the island.
T1: But with the coming of Peter, who hates idleness, everyone on the island pretends to be busy
again,
T2: which in turn tricks their own minds into feeling desperately under pressure to prepare for him
T3: If you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear cogs and gears of the whole island start
to turn.
T1: On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as follows: The lost boys were out
looking for peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys and Tiger lily’s tribe were out looking
for the pirates. They were going round and round the island at EXACTLY the same rate, a rather
unusual coincidence which afforded them the luxury of never bumping into each other.
T4: Everyone was looking for a fight, except the boys, not that they wouldn’t be keen but tonight
they were out to greet their captain...
T1: Let us pretend to lie here in the grass and watch them as they steal by in single file.
T2: They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him.
T3: Slightly is the most out spoken of the boys. He thinks he remember the days before he was lost,
and therefore believes he is the greatest of all the boys. (Slightly calls)
T4: Curly is next; he is a pickle, often falling into scrapes and scraps, and so often has he had to
deliver up his person when peter said sternly, “Stand forth the one who did this thing,” that he
automatically stands forwards whether he has done the thing or not.
T3: Then come the Twins, who cannot be described because we would be sure to be describing the
wrong one.
17
T1: Next comes Nibs, who we imagine derives their a character from a combination of Albert Einstein
charisma and Jim Carrey’s intelligence.
T4: Then comes tootles – as brave as the rest of them, but the most unfortunate... he had been in
fewer adventures than any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when he had
stepped round the corner.
T2: Poor kind tootles, there is danger in the air for you tonight.
TOOTLES. Has Peter come back yet, Slightly?
SLIGHTLY (with a solemnity that he thinks suits the occasion). No, Tootles, no.
CURLY (as if Peter might be listening). I do wish he would come back.
TOOTLES. I am always afraid of the pirates when Peter is not here to protect us.
SLIGHTLY. I am not afraid of pirates. Nothing frightens me. But I do wish Peter would come back and
tell us whether he has heard anything more about Cinderella.
SECOND TWIN (with diffidence). Slightly, I dreamt last night that the prince found Cinderella.
FIRST TWIN (who is intellectually the superior of the two). Twin, I think you should not have dreamt
that, for I didn't, and Peter may say we oughtn't to dream differently, being twins, you know.
TOOTLES. I am awfully anxious about Cinderella. You see, not knowing anything about my own
mother I am fond of thinking that she was rather like Cinderella.
NIBS. All I remember about my mother is that she often said to father, 'Oh how I wish I had a cheque
book of my own.' I don't know what a cheque book is, but I should just love to give my mother one.
18
SLIGHTLY (as usual). My mother was fonder of me than your mothers were of you. (Uproar.) Oh yes,
she was. Peter had to make up names for you, but my mother had wrote my name on the pinafore I
was lost in. 'Slightly Soiled'; that's my name.
PIRATES.
Hook’s Entrance -
The wind is in the halyards,
The thunder’s in the clouds,
Saint Elmo’s in the crow’s near
A rattling of the shrouds,
The squalls they are a-squalling
The lightning splits the sky,
Don’t board a ship with me boys,
If you’re afraid to die.
Follow me if you want to be a pirate,
Follow me if you want to be a pirate!
The figure-heads a dead man,
The flag’s a skull and bones,
Let’s raise a bottle o’grog me boys
To good old Davy Jones!
We’re sailing to oblivion
With our spirits riding high;
19
Don’board a ship with Cap’n Hook
If you’re afraid to die!
Now throw those grappling irons
Me boys and let the rope run out;
And board the Spanish galleon with
A pirates fearsome shout,
Put a cutlass in our teeth
And some fire in your eye,
Don’t board a ship with Cap’n Hook
If you’re afraid to die,
(Follow me if you want to be a pirate)
Oh there’s fire in the fore-top,
There’s fire in the main,
To me way hay hay high ho,
There’s fire down below!
So let’s go into battle me boys
All red in tooth and claw,
And if they give you grief me boys,
Keep coming back for more,
We’ll put the fear of God in them
With our pirate’s battle cry
20
DON’T TAKE A LOOK
AT CAPTAIN HOOK
IF YOU’RE AFRAID TO DIE!
(Follow me if you want to be a pirate!)
Follow me if you want to be a pirate….
21
STARKEY (abject). Captain, let go!
HOOK. Put back that pistol, first.
STARKEY. 'Twas one of those boys you hate; I could haveshot him dead.
HOOK. Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins on us. Do you want to
lose your scalp?
SMEE (wriggling his cutlass pleasantly). That is true. Shall I after him, Captain, and tickle him
with Johnny Corkscrew? Johnny is a silent fellow.
HOOK. Not now. He is only one, and I want to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for
them. (The boatswain whistles his instructions, and the men disperse on their frightful
errand. With none to hear save SMEE, HOOK becomes confidential.) Most of all I want their
captain, Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm. I have waited long to shake his hand with
this. (Luxuriating.) Oh, I 'll tear him!
SMEE (always ready for a chat). Yet I have oft heard you say your hook was worth a score of
hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.
HOOK. If I was a mother I would pray to have my children born with this instead of that (his
left arm creeps nervously behind him. He has a galling remembrance). Smee, Pan flung my
arm to a crocodile that happened to be passingby.
SMEE. I have often noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.
HOOK (pettishly). Not of crocodiles but of that one crocodile. (He lays bare a lacerated

heart.) The brute liked my arm so much, Smee, that he has followed me ever since, from sea
to sea, and from land to land, licking his lips for the rest of me.
SMEE (looking for the bright side). In a way it is a sort of compliment.
HOOK (with dignity). I want no such compliments; I want Peter Pan, who first gave the brute
his taste for me. Smee, that crocodile would have had me before now, but by a lucky chance
he swallowed a clock, and it goes tick, tick, tick, tick inside him; and so before he can reach
me I hear the tick and bolt. (He emits a hollow rumble.) Once I heard it strike six within him.
SMEE (sombrely). Some day the clock will run down,and then he'll get you.
HOOK (a broken man). Ay, that is the fear that haunts me.(He rises.) Smee, this seat is hot;
odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I am burning.
SMEE. A chimney!
HOOK (avidly). Listen! Smee, 'tis plain they live here, beneath the ground. (He replaces the
mushroom. His brain works tortuously.)
22
SMEE (hopefully). Unrip your plan, Captain.
HOOK. To return to the boat and cook a large rich cakeof jolly thickness with sugar on it,
green sugar. There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly moles
had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece. We must leave the cake on
the shore of the mermaids' lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there, trying to
catch the mermaids. They will find the cake and gobble it up, because, having no mother,
they don't know how dangerous 'tis to eat rich damp cake. They will die!
SMEE (fascinated). It is the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of,
HOOK (meaning well). Shake hands on 't.
SMEE. No, Captain, no.
HOOK. Yo ho, yo ho, when I say 'paw,'
By fear they're overtook,

Naught's left upon your bones when you.
Have shaken hands with Hook!
TIGER LILY. .
The pirates have been,
We’ve watched and we’ve seeng
The lack of respect
The trash that they’ve left
You see they don’t care
About more than her hair
So, COME ON, let’s clean it all up,
Times running out, not much left on the clock.
I’ve told you before, you’ve heard my voice,
Don’t make it a struggle it should be a choice
Of the easiest kind, you’re here in our land,
I know shes lacking, but you can lend a hand,
Well clean up their mess, it’s already been planned
I’ve got some things to confess, to get off of my chest,
23
The time for fun and games has long gone,
The last legs of the race has been run and
The worlds heating up in various ways
Australia’s on fire, the skies a red haze
And ‘kids’ are fighting on the world stage
Vying to control this hegemonic maze
But the ‘kids’ are flagging and showing their age
Their hair has been dyed, and their eyes are glazed
Will they learn their lesson, get out of the way
End this apocalyptic shit, and leave it to us
Stop crying, hush up, that’s it, ya big wuss
WE’RE the last generation
We care for no borders,
have no need for a nation
We’ve found no allegiance,
that fucks the equation
What on Earth will you do,
With your education?
Come push and come shove,
We'll show how we’re made in the brightest of fire
Like a phoenix we shall rise from the pyre
Made from hopes and fear
See the day as it nears
Our moment has come
we can’t turn and run
so I turn and ask you -
What on earth do we do?
24
EXIT STAGE LEFT.
TOOTLES. They are gone.
SLIGHTLY (almost losing confidence in himself). I do wish Peter was here.
FIRST TWIN. H'sh! What is that? (He is gazing at the lagoon and shrinks back.) It is wolves,
and they are chasing Nibs!
NIBS (falling among his comrades). Save me, save me!
TOOTLES. What should we do?
SECOND TWIN. What would Peter do?
SLIGHTLY. Peter would look at them through his legs; let us do what Peter would do.
FIRST TWIN (swaggering). We have saved you, Nibs. Did you see the pirates?
NIBS (sitting up, and agreeably aware that the centre of interest is now to pass to him). No,
but I saw a wonderfuller thing, Twin. (All mouths open for the information to be dropped
into them.) High over the lagoon I saw the loveliest great white bird. It is flying this
way. (They search the firmament.)
TOOTLES. What kind of a bird, do you think?
NIBS (awed). I don't know; but it looked so weary, and as it flies it moans 'Poor Wendy.'
SLIGHTLY (instantly). I remember now there are birds called Wendies.
FIRST TWIN (who has flown to a high branch). See, it comes, the Wendy! (They all see it
now.) How white it is! (A dot of light is pursuing the bird malignantly.)
TOOTLES. That is Tinker Bell. Tink is trying to hurt theWendy. (He makes a cup of his hands
and calls) Hullo, Tink! (A response comes down in the fairy language.) She says Peter wants
us to shoot the Wendy.
NIBS. Let us do what Peter wishes.
SLIGHTLY. Ay, shoot it; quick, bows and arrows.
TOOTLES (first with his bow). Out of the way, Tink; I'll shoot it. (His bolt goes home,
and WENDY, who has been fluttering among the tree-tops in her white nightgown,
falls straight to earth. No one could be more proud than TOOTLES.) I have shot the Wendy;
25
Peter will be so pleased. (From some tree on which TINK is roosting comes the tinkle we can
now translate, 'You silly ass.' TOOTLES falters.) Why do you say that? (The others feel that
he may have blundered, and draw away from TOOTLES.)
SLIGHTLY (examining the fallen one more minutely). This is no bird; I think it must be a lady.
NIBS (who would have preferred it to be a bird). And Tootles has killed her.
CURLY. Now I see, Peter was bringing her to us. (They wonder for what object.)
SECOND TWIN. To take care of us? (Undoubtedly for some diverting purpose.)
OMNES (though every one of them had wanted to have a shot at her). Oh, Tootles!
TOOTLES (gulping). I did it. When ladies used to come to me in dreams I said 'Pretty mother,'
but when she really came I shot her! (He perceives the necessity of a solitary life for
him.) Friends, good-bye.
SEVERAL (not very enthusiastic). Don't go.
TOOTLES. I must; I am so afraid of Peter.
OMNES. Peter!
PETER. Greeting, boys! (Their silence chafes him.) I am back; why do you not cheer? Great
news, boys, I have brought at last a mother for us all.
SLIGHTLY (vaguely). Ay, ay.
PETER. She flew this way; have you not seen her?
SECOND TWIN (as PETER evidently thinks her important).Oh mournful day!
TOOTLES (making a break in the paling). Peter, I will show her to you.
THE OTHERS (closing the gap). No, no.
TOOTLES (majestically). Stand back all, and let Peter see.
PETER. Wendy, with an arrow in her heart! (He plucks it out.) Wendy is dead. (He is not so
much pained as puzzled.)
CURLY. I thought it was only flowers that die.
PETER. Perhaps she is frightened at being dead? (Noneof them can say as to that.) Whose
arrow? (Not one of them looks at TOOTLES.)
TOOTLES. Mine, Peter.
26
PETER (raising it as a dagger). Oh dastard hand!
TOOTLES (kneeling and baring his breast). Strike, Peter; strike true.
PETER (undergoing a singular experience). I cannot strike; there is something stays my hand.
NIBS. 'Tis she, the Wendy lady. See, her arm. (To help a friend) I think she said 'Poor
Tootles.'
PETER (investigating). She lives!
SLIGHTLY (authoritatively). The Wendy lady lives.(The delightful feeling that they have been
cleverer than they thought comes over them and they applaud themselves.)
PETER (holding up a button that is attached to her chain). See, the arrow struck against this.
It is a kiss I gave her; it has saved her life.
SLIGHTLY. I remember kisses; let me see it. (He takes it in his hand.) Ay, that is a kiss.
PETER. Wendy, get better quickly and I'll take you to see the mermaids. She is awfully
anxious to see a mermaid.
CURLY. Listen to Tink rejoicing because she thinks the Wendy is dead! (regardless of spoiling
another’s pleasure) Tink, the Wendy lives.
SECOND TWIN (tell-tale). It was she who said that you wanted us to shoot the Wendy.
PETER. She said that? Then listen, Tink, I am your friend no more. (There is a note of
acerbity in TINK'S reply; it may mean 'Who wants you?') Begone from me forever. (Now it is
a very wet tinkle.)
CURLY. She is crying.
TOOTLES. She says she is your fairy.
PETER (who knows they are not worth worrying about). Oh well, not for ever, but for a
whole week. Now what shall we do with Wendy?
CURLY. Let us carry her down into the house.
SLIGHTLY. Ay, that is what one does with ladies.
PETER. No, you must not touch her; it wouldn't be sufficiently respectful.
SLIGHTLY. That is what I was thinking.
TOOTLES. But if she lies there she will die.
27
SLIGHTLY. Ay, she will die. It is a pity, but there is no way out.
PETER. Yes, there is. Let us build a house around her! (Cheers again, meaning that no
difficulty baffles PETER.) Leave all to me. Bring the best of what we have. Gut our house. Be
sharp. (They race down their trees.)
MAGGIE (bewildered). Jay, Jay, wake up. Where is Daddy, Jay?
JAY (with the help of one eye but not always the same eye). It is true, we did
fly! (Thankfully) And here is Peter. Peter, is this the place?
PETER (curtly). Yes.
MAGGIE. Where is Wendy? (PETER points.)
JAY (who still wears his hat). She is asleep.
MAGGIE. Jay, let us wake her and get her to make supper for us. Jay, what is that?
PETER (still house-building). Curly, see that these boys help in the building of the house.
JAY. Build a house?
CURLY. For the Wendy.
JAY (feeling that there must be some mistake here). For Wendy? Why, she is only a girl.
CURLY. That is why we are her servants.
JAY (dazed). Are you Wendy's servants?
PETER. Yes, and you also. Away with them. (In another moment they are woodsmen hacking
at trees, with CURLY as overseer.) Slightly, fetch a doctor. (SLIGHTLY reels and goes. He
returns professionally in JAY'S hat.) Please, sir, are you a doctor?
SLIGHTLY (trembling in his desire to give satisfaction).Yes, my little man.
PETER. Please, sir, a lady lies very ill.
SLIGHTLY (taking care not to fall over her). Tut, tut, where does she lie?
PETER. In yonder glade. (It is a variation of a game they play.)
SLIGHTLY. I will put a glass thing in her mouth. (He inserts an imaginary thermometer
in WENDY'S mouth and gives it a moment to record its verdict. He shakes it and then
consults it.)
PETER (anxiously). How is she?
28
SLIGHTLY. Tut, tut, this has cured her.
PETER (leaping joyously). I am glad.
SLIGHTLY. I will call again in the evening. Give her beef tea out of a cup with a spout to it,
tut, tut.
PETER (with an already fading recollection of the Darling nursery). These are not good
enough for Wendy. How I wish I knew the kind of house she would prefer!
FIRST TWIN. Peter, she is moving in her sleep.
TOOTLES (opening WENDY'S mouth and gazing down into the depths). Lovely!
PETER. Oh, Wendy, if you could tell us the kind of house you would like to have.
WENDY (without opening her eyes).
Tiny House
Build a tiny little house
In the middle of the wood
With some ticky and some tacky
You can make it very good
With a scritchy scratchy saw
And a twisty little screw
We will build a little cottage
Fit for me and you.
Build a tiny little chimney
With a pot and a place
Where the fire will put
A little glow on every little face
With a tippy tappy hammer
29
And a shiny little nail,
Be sure to hang a picture
On the picture rail.
Little home from home,
Cosy and bijou,
It’s a perfect little house
We can call ‘chez nous’,
And we’ll fill it with love
Tra la-la, with love, tra la-la
‘Cause we made it for you.
Male: Sing a song of builders,
Look at how they go,
Four and twenty bum-cracks
All in a row;
When the pub was opened
they all began to sing,
‘I’d rather I was plastered
Than doing the plastering!’
Females: Four and twenty plumbers
Bending pipes of copper,
If you’ve got a job to do
You’d better do it proper,
When you crack your soil pipe
They’ll work both day and night,
‘Cause no one wants to walk
30
Around ankle deep in…
Shiny little window
And a shiny little door,
And a shiny little letter box,
Now who could ask for more?
With a proper little staircase,
That goes both up and down,
The smartest little house
Outside of London Town
And a garden pond
And a garden gnome,
And a garden gate so
Children may safely roam.
And we’ll fill it with love
Tra la la with love
Tra la la for your home sweet home x2
FIRST TWIN. (walking around with camera, finishes filming the audience) I think it is
finished.
PETER. There is no knocker on the door. (TOOTLES hangs up the sole of his shoe.) There is
no chimney, we must have a chimney. (They await his deliberations anxiously.)
JAY (unwisely critical). It certainly does need a chimney.
PETER (with his hand on the knocker and then calls the boys with a bird call). All look your
best; the first impression is awfully important. (he knocks, and after a dreadful moment of
suspense, in which they cannot help wondering if any one is inside, the door opens and who
should come out but WENDY! She has evidently been tidying a little. She is quite surprised
to find that she has nine children.)
31
WENDY (genteelly). Where am I?
SLIGHTLY. Wendy lady, for you we built this house.
NIBS and TOOTLES. Oh, say you are pleased.
WENDY (stroking the pretty thing). Lovely, darling house!
FIRST TWIN. And we are your children.
WENDY (affecting surprise). Oh?
OMNES (kneeling, with outstretched arms). Wendy lady, be our mother! (Now that they

know it is pretend they acclaim her greedily.)
WENDY (not to make herself too cheap). Ought I? Of course it is frightfully fascinating; but

you see I am only a little girl; I have no real experience.
TOOTLES That doesn't matter.
CURLY What we need is just a nice motherly person.
WENDY. Oh dear, I feel that is just exactly what I am.
OMNES. It is, it is, we saw it at once.
WENDY. Very well then, I will do my best. (In their glee they go dancing obstreperously
round the little house, and she sees she must be firm with them as well as kind.) Come
inside at once, you naughty children, I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to
bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella.
Act 3
Opening A
T1: It’s the end of a long playful day on the lagoon. Peter seems to have been persuaded by
the sun to let the boys play for another five minutes
T3: this gives the boys just enough time to race across the water, before Peter has to gather
them up and allow the moon to settle in the sky.
T1: the shine of the evening sun reveals the Mermaids Lagoon. With drops of glistening
water, you can almost see your reflection, were it not for the Mermaids making gentle
waves under the surface
T2: At the edge of the lagoon and on Marooner’s rock the mermaids can be seen basking
and lazily combing out their hair whilst blowing their bubbles into the air. This seems to be a
game they like to play with Peter to see how many bubbles he can catch.
32
T3: When it’s really quiet you can hear the mermaids singing and their tails flick against the
water. You could try to count their tails did they not disappear so quickly.
T2: Quick! There goes another one.
T1: Almost, but not quite...
T2: During the day the mermaids are really the most mesmerizing creatures you could ever
lay eyes on
T3: but the most haunting time to see them is at the turning of the moon when their blissful
singing turns into strange whaling cries and the lagoon which was once safe for the children
becomes the most dangerous place to be...
WENDY (preserving her scales as carefully as if they were rare postage stamps). I did so want to
catch a mermaid.
PETER (getting rid of his). It is awfully difficult to catch a mermaid.
They are such cruel creatures, Wendy, that they try to pull boys and girls like you into the water and
drown them.
WENDY (too guarded by this time to ask what he means 'precisely by 'like you,' though she is very
desirous of knowing). How hateful!
PETER. Wendy, this is a fearfully important rock. It is called Marooners' Rock. Sailors are marooned,
you know, when their captain leaves them on a rock and sails away.
WENDY. Leaves them on this little rock to drown?
PETER (lightly). Oh, they don't live long. Their hands are tied, so that they can't swim. When the tide
is full this rock is covered with water, and then the sailor drowns.
(WENDY is uneasy as she surveys the rock, which is the only one in the lagoon and no larger than a
table. Since she last looked around a threatening change has come over the scene. The sun has
gone, but the moon has not come. What has come is a cold shiver across the waters which has sent
all the wiser mermaids to their coral recesses. They know that evil is creeping over the lagoon. Of
the boys PETER is of course the first to scent it, and he has leapt to his feet before the words strike
the rock—
'And if we 're parted by a shot
We 're sure to meet below.'
The games on the rock and around it end so abruptly that several divers are checked in the air. There
they hang waiting for the word of command from PETER. When they get it they strike the water
simultaneously, and the rock is at once as bare as if suddenly they had been blown off it. Thus the
pirates find it deserted when their dinghy strikes the rock and is nearly stove in by the concussion.)
SMEE. Luff, you spalpeen, luff! (They are SMEE and STARKEY, with TIGER LILY, their captive, bound

hand and foot.) What we have got to do is to hoist the redskin on to the rock and leave her there to
drown.
33
STARKEY (chagrined because she does not mewl). No mewling. This is your reward for prowling
round the ship with a knife in your mouth.
TIGER LILLY (stoically). Enough said.
SMEE (who would have preferred a farewell palaver). So that's it! On to the rock with her, mate.
STARKEY (experiencing for perhaps the last time the stirrings of a man). Not so rough, Smee;
roughish, but not so rough.
SMEE (dragging her on to the rock). It is the captain's orders.
WENDY (in the water). Poor Tiger Lily!
STARKEY. What was that? (The children bob.)
PETER (who can imitate the captain's voice so perfectly that even the author has a dizzy feeling that
at times he was really HOOK). Ahoy there, you lubbers!
STARKEY. It is the captain; he must be swimming out to us.
SMEE (calling). We have put the redskin on the rock, Captain.
PETER. Set her free.
SMEE. But, Captain——
PETER. Cut her bonds, or I 'll plunge my hook in you.
SMEE. This is queer:
STARKEY (unmanned). Let us follow the captain's orders.
HOOK. Boat ahoy!
SMEE (relieved). It is the captain.
STARKEY. Captain, is all well?
SMEE. He sighs.
STARKEY. He sighs again.
SMEE (counting). And yet a third time he sighs. (With foreboding) What's up, Captain?
HOOK (who has perhaps found the large rich damp cake untouched). The game is up. Those boys
have found a mother!
STARKEY. Oh evil day!
34
SMEE. What is a mother?
WENDY (horrified). He doesn't know!
HOOK (sharply). What was that?
STARKEY. One of them mermaids.
HOOK. Dost not know, Smee? A mother is—— (He finds it more difficult to explain than he had
expected, and looks about him for an illustration. He finds one in a great bird which drifts past in a
nest as large as the roomiest basin) There is a lesson in mothers for you! The nest must have fallen
into the water, but would the bird desert her eggs? (PETER, who is now more or less off his head,
makes the sound of a bird answering in the negative. The nest is borne out of sight.)
STARKEY. Maybe she is hanging about here to protect Peter?
SMEE (not usually a man of ideas). Captain, could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make her
our mother?
HOOK. Obesity and bunions, 'tis a princely scheme. We will seize the children, make them walk the
plank, and Wendy shall be our mother!
WENDY. Never! (Another splash from PETER.)
HOOK. What say you, bullies?
SMEE. There is my hand on 't.
STARKEY. And mine.
HOOK. And there is my hook. Swear. (All swear.) But I had forgot; where is the redskin?
SMEE (shaken). That is all right, Captain; we let her go.
HOOK (terrible). Let her go?
SMEE. 'Twas your own orders, Captain.
STARKEY (whimpering). You called over the water to us to let her go.
HOOK. Brimstone and gall, what cozening is here? (Disturbed by their faithful faces) Lads, I gave no
such order.
SMEE 'Tis passing queer.
HOOK (addressing the immensities). Spirit that haunts thisdark lagoon to-night, dost hear me?
PETER (in the same voice). Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.
HOOK (gripping the stave for support). Who are you, stranger, speak.
35
PETER (who is only too ready to speak). I am Jas Hook, Captain of the Jolly Roger.
HOOK (now white to the gills). No, no, you are not.
PETER. Brimstone and gall, say that again and I 'll cast anchor in you.
HOOK. If you are Hook, come tell me, who am I?
PETER. A codfish, only a codfish.
HOOK (aghast). A codfish?
SMEE (drawing back from him). Have we been captained all this time by a codfish?
STARKEY. It's lowering to our pride.
HOOK (feeling that his ego is slipping from him). Don't desert me, bullies.
PETER (top-heavy). Paw, fish, paw!
HOOK. Have you another name?
PETER (falling to the lure). Ay, ay.
HOOK (thirstily). Vegetable?
PETER. No.
HOOK. Mineral?
PETER. No.
HOOK. Animal?
PETER (after a hurried consultation with TOOTLES). Yes.
HOOK. Man?
PETER (with scorn). No.
HOOK. Child?
PETER. Yes.
HOOK. Ordinary child?
PETER. No!
HOOK. Wonderful child?
36
PETER (to WENDY'S distress). Yes!
HOOK. Are you in England?
PETER. No.
HOOK. Are you here?
PETER. Yes.
HOOK (beaten, though he feels he has very nearly got it). Smee, you ask him some questions.
SMEE (rummaging his brains). I can't think of a thing,
PETER. Can't guess, can't guess! (Foundering in his cockiness) Do you give it up?
HOOK (eagerly). Yes.
PETER. All of you?
SMEE and STARKEY. Yes.
PETER (crowing). Well, then, I am Peter Pan!
HOOK. Pan! Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead or alive!
PETER (who still has all his baby teeth). Boys, lam into the pirates!
NIBS. They must be swimming home.
JAY. Or flying.
FIRST TWIN. Yes, that is it. Let us be off and call to them as we go.
WENDY. Peter! (He rouses himself and looks around him.) Where are we, Peter?
PETER. We are on the rock, but it is getting smaller. Soon the water will be over it. Listen!
WENDY. We must go.
PETER. Yes.
WENDY. Shall we swim or fly?
PETER. Wendy, do you think you could swim or fly to the island without me?
WENDY. You know I couldn't, Peter, I am just a beginner.
PETER. Hook wounded me twice. (He believes it; he is so good at pretend that he feels the pain, his
arms hang limp.) I can neither swim nor fly.
37
WENDY. Do you mean we shall both be drowned?
PETER. Look how the water is rising!
PETER (with little interest). It must be the tail of the kite we made for Maggie; you remember it tore
itself out of his hands and floated away. (He looks up and sees the kite sailing overhead.) The kite!
Why shouldn't it carry you? (He grips the tail and pulls, and the kite responds.)
WENDY. Both of us!
PETER. It can't lift two, Maggie and Curly tried.
WENDY. I won't go without you. Let us draw lots which is to stay behind.
PETER. And you a lady, never! (The tail is in her hands, and the kite is tugging hard. She holds out her
mouth to PETER, but he knows they cannot do that.)
Ready, Wendy!
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
T1: The wind is so strong, the kite is practically flying away without Wendy.
T2: This isn’t their last goodbye, right?
T3: Who cares? The water is rising and Peter is still stranded in the lagoon.
(Twitchers go quiet and mermaids start to crawl)
T1: The mermaids are calling to the moon, this is the first time Peter has been this close.
T3: He’s scared, a tremor passing through his spine into the water.
T2: Peter has never noticed his heartbeat before but it sure is racing now with the water lapping at
his feet.
T3: The Neverbird is calling to him
T1: What’s she saying?
T2: You dunderheaded little jay, why don’t you do as I tell you
T3: Do you think he knows she’s calling him names?
38
T1: Oh I think she’s getting angry.
T3: Yes – Neverbirds have very short tempers
T2: Day x, log one in fanciful stories people can talk to the birds freely and I wish I could pretend that
this was such a story and say Peter replied intelligently to the Neverbird. But unfortunately, in this
moment it seems they both forgot their manners.
(Peter starts paces, calling names out into the open, possibly shouting into the audience)
All three: Shut up!
T3: Look, he’s climbing into her nest –
T2: but not before retrieving Starky’s hat.
T3: His final act is removing his shirt and creating a sail to harness the wind
T1: The bird sits protecting her eggs in the gentleman’s hat as it watches the boy who could fly, sail
away into the open sea.
T2: Proud and cocky as ever
T1: Just as Jas Hook did all those years before.
Act 4
Day 3, Log 7: We see simultaneously the home under the ground with the children in it and the
wood above ground with the Redskins who are guarding the children from the Pirates.
I heard that the only way they can communicate is through those hollow trees there...!
Shh! behold, The children are about to begin their evening meal:
The table at which they're sat is on top a live tree trunk, and if you listen, you may hear the
continuous growing pains of the never tree
(dramatically): Then ‘Never-never tree?!’
Yes, And sometimes, the little lost boys have to pause their meals to cut a bit more from the--
(getting excited) Trunk of the NEver tree because it doesn’t stop!!!
SHHH we must stay quiet else they might fly away!!
39
(back to storytelling): and as s they eat, warmth comes from the enormous fireplace which, of
course, is in almost any part of the room where you care to light it.
Wendy has stretched strings across the room
i saw her use those to hang washing!
well, lets hope they use some of this nonsense stuff for good!
WENDY (her fingers to her ears, for their chatter and clatter are deafening). Silence! Is your
mug empty, Slightly?
SLIGHTLY (who would not say this if he had a mug). Not quite empty, thank you.
NIBS. Mummy, he has not even begun to drink his poe-poe.
SLIGHTLY (seizing his chance, for this is tale-bearing). I complain of Nibs!
WENDY. Well, Jay?
JAY. May I sit in Peter's chair as he is not here?
WENDY. In your father's chair? Certainly not.
JAY. He is not really our father. He did not even know how to be a father till I showed him.
SECOND TWIN. I complain of Jay!
TOOTLES (who has the poorest opinion of himself). I don't suppose Maggie would let me be
baby?
MAGGIE. No, I won't.
TOOTLES. May I be dunce?
FIRST TWIN (from his perch). No. It's awfully difficult to be dunce.
TOOTLES. As I can't be anything important would any of you like to see me do a trick?
OMNES. No.
TOOTLES (subsiding). I hadn't really any hope.
NIBS. Slightly is coughing on the table.
40
CURLY. The twins began wiih tappa rolls.
SLIGHTLY. I complain of Nibs!
NIBS. I complain of Slightly!
WENDY. Oh dear, I am sure I sometimes think that spinsters are to be envied.
MAGGIE. Wendy, I am too big for a cradle.
WENDY. You are the littlest, and a cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a house.
You others can clear away now. (She sits down on a pumpkin near the fire to her usual
evening occupation, darning.) Every heel with a hole in it!
PETER. The Great White Father is glad to see the Piccaninny braves protecting his wigwam
from the pirates.
TIGER LILY. The Great White Father save me from pirates. Me his velly nice friend now; no
let pirates hurt him.
BRAVES. Ugh, ugh, wah!
TIGER LILY. Tiger Lily has spoken.
PANTHER. Loola, loola! Great Big Little Panther has spoken.
PETER. It is well. The Great White Father has spoken.
WENDY. Children, I hear your father's step. He likes you to meet him at the door.
(PETER scatters pretend nuts among them and watches sharply to see that they crunch with
relish.) Peter, you just spoil them, you know!
JAY (who would be incredulous if he dare). Any sport, Peter?
PETER. Two tigers and a pirate.
JAY (boldly). Where are their heads?
PETER (contracting his little brows.) In the bag.
JAY. (No, he doesn't say it. He backs away.)
WENDY (peeping into the bag). They are beauties'. (She has learned her lesson.)
FIRST TWIN. Mummy, we all want to dance.
WENDY. The mother of such an armful dance!
41
SLIGHTLY. As it is Saturday night?
WENDY. Of course it is Saturday night, Peter? (He shrugs an indifferent assent.) On with

your nighties first. What is wrong, Peter?
PETER (scared). It is only pretend, isn't it, that I am their father?
WENDY (drooling). Oh yes. But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.
PETER (determined to get at facts, the only things that puzzle him). But not really?
WENDY. Not if you don't wish it.
PETER. I don't.
WENDY (knowing she ought not to 'probe but driven to it by something within.) What are
your exact feelings for me, Peter?
PETER (in the class-room). Those of a devoted son, Wendy.
WENDY (turning away). I thought so.
PETER. You are so puzzling. Tiger Lily is just the same; there is something or other she wants
to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.
WENDY (with spirit). No, indeed it isn't.
PETER. Then what is it?
WENDY. It isn't for a lady to tell.
PETER (badgered). I suppose she means that she wants to be my mother.
(TINK'S comment is 'You silly ass.')
WENDY (who has picked up some of the fairy words). I almost agree with her!
NIBS. Now the story you promised to tell us as soon as we were in bed!
WENDY (severely). As far as I can see you are not in bed yet.
WENDY (drawing up her stool). Well, there was once a gentleman———
CURLY. I wish he had been a lady.
NIBS. I wish he had been a white rat.
42
WENDY. Quiet! There was a lady also. The gentleman's name was George Darling and the
lady's name was Mrs. Darling———
JAY. I knew them!
MAGGIE (who has been allowed to join the circle). I think I knew them.
WENDY. They were married, you know; and what do you think they had?
NIBS. White rats?
WENDY. No, they had three descendants. White rats are descendants also. Almost
everything is a descendant. Now these three children had a faithful nurse called Nana.
MAGGIE (alas). What a funny name!
WENDY. But George Darling—(faltering) or was it Martin Darling? —was angry with her and
chained her up in the yard; so all the children flew away. They flew away to the Never Land,
where the lost boys are.
CURLY. I just thought they did; I don't know how it is, but I just thought they did.
TOOTLES. Oh, Wendy, was one of the lost boys called Tootles.
WENDY. Yes, he was.
TOOTLES (dazzled). Am I in a story? Nibs, I am in a story!
PETER (who is by the fire making Pan's pipes with his knife, and is determined

that WENDY shall have fair play, however beastly a story he may think it). A little less noise
there.
WENDY (melting over the beauty of her present performance, but without any real
qualms). Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents with all their
children flown away. Think, oh think, of the empty beds. (The heartless ones think of them
with glee.)
FIRST TWIN (cheerfully). It's awfully sad.
WENDY. But our heroine knew that her mother would always leave the window open for
her progeny to fly back by; so they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.
FIRST TWIN. Did they ever go back?
WENDY (comfortably). Let us now take a peep into the future. Years have rolled by, and
who is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London station?
NIBS. Oh, Wendy, who is she?
43
WENDY (swelling). Can it be—yes—no—yes, it is the fair Wendy!
TOOTLES. I am glad.
WENDY. Who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her? Can they be Jay and
Maggie? They are. (Pride of MAGGIE.) 'See, dear brothers,' says Wendy, pointing upward,
'there is the window standing open.' So up they flew to their loving parents, and pen cannot
inscribe the happy scene over which we draw a veil. (Her triumph is spoilt by a groan
from PETER and she hurries to him.) Peter, what is it? (Thinking he is ill, and looking lower
than his chest.) Where is it?
PETER. It isn't that kind of pain. Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. I thought like you
about the window, so I stayed away for moons and moons, and then I flew back, but the
window was barred, for my mother had forgotten all about me and there was another little
person sleeping in my bed.
JAY. Wendy, let us go back!
WENDY. Are you sure mothers are like that?
PETER. Yes.
WENDY. Jay, Maggie! (She clasps them to her.)
FIRST TWIN (alarmed). You are not to leave us, Wendy?
WENDY. I must.
NIBS. Not to-night?
WENDY. At once. Perhaps mother is in half-mourning by this time! Peter, will you make the
necessary arrangements?
PETER (coolly). If you wish it.
CURLY. We won't let you go!
WENDY (with one of those inspirations women have, in an emergency, to make use of some
male who need otherwise have no hope). Tootles, I appeal to you.
TOOTLES (leaping to his death if necessary). I am just Tootles and nobody minds me, but the
first who does not behave to Wendy I will blood him severely. (PETER returns.)
PETER (with awful serenity). Wendy, I told the braves to guide you through the wood as
flying tires you so. Then Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. (A shrill tinkle from the
boudoir probably means 'and drop her into it.')
44
NIBS (fingering the curtain which he is not allowed to open). Tink, you are to get up and take
Wendy on a journey. (Star-eyed) She says she won't!
PETER (taking a step toward that chamber). If you don't get up, Tink, and dress at once——
She is getting up!
WENDY (quivering now that the time to depart has come). Dear ones, if you will all come
with me I feel almost sure I can get my father and mother to adopt you.
NIBS. But won't they think us rather a handful?
WENDY (a swift reckoner). Oh no, it will only mean having a few beds in the drawing-room;
they can be hidden behind screens on first Thursdays.
OMNES. Peter, may we go?
PETER (carelessly through the pipes to which he is giving a finishing touch). All right.
WENDY (insinuatingly). Get your clothes, Peter.
PETER (skipping about and playing fairy music on his pipes, the only music he knows). I am
not going with you, Wendy.
WENDY. Yes, Peter!
PETER. No.
WENDY. Peter isn't coming!
JAY (even JAY). Peter not coming!
TOOTLES (overthrown). Why, Peter?
PETER (his pipes more riotous than ever). I just want always to be a little kid and to have
fun. Now then, no fuss, no blubbering. (With dreadful cynicism) I hope you will like your
mothers! Are you ready, Tink? Then lead the way.
PETER (prematurely). All is over!
WENDY. But who has won?
PETER. Hst! If the Indians have won they will beat the tom-tom; it is always their signal of
victory.
TOOTLES. The tom-tom!
PETER (sheathing his sword). An Indian victory! You are quite safe now, Wendy. Boys, good-
bye. (He resumes his pipes.)
45
WENDY. Peter, you will remember about changing your flannels, won't you?'
PETER. Oh, all right!
WENDY. And this is your medicine.
PETER. I won't forget.
WENDY. Peter, what are you to me?
PETER (through the pipes). Your son, Wendy.
WENDY. Oh, good-bye!
WHO WILL MOTHER ME?
Who will mother me?
Who will care for me?
Do they realise I’m still a child?
Rock-a-bye babies so high in the tree,
Peter and Maggie and John, all three;
When the bough breaks do not worry at all,
Faires will come to cushion your fall, to cushion your fall.
But who will cushion me?
Who looks after Wendy?
They have thrown away my childhood forever while they still run and play.
Rock-a-bye babies so high in the tree,
46
I wish there was someone to rock-a-bye me,
Someone to comfort and someone to hold,
I’ve never felt so empty and cold,
And who will mother me? Who will mother me?
PETER (stirring). Who is that? (TINK has to tell her tale, in one long ungrammatical

sentence.) The redskins were defeated? Wendy and the boys captured by the pirates! I'll
rescue her, I'll rescue her! (He leap first at his dagger, and then at his grindstone, to sharpen
it. TINK alights near the shell, and rings out a warning cry.) Oh, that is just my medicine.
Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it? I promised Wendy to take it, and I will as soon as I
have sharpened my dagger. (TINK, who sees its red colour and remembers the red in the
grate's eye, nobly swallows the draught as PETER'S hand is reaching for it.) Why, Tink, you
have drunk my medicine! (She flutters strangely about the room, answering him now in a
very thin tinkle.) It was poisoned and you drank it to save my life! Tink, dear Tink, are you
dying? (He has never called her dear TINK before, and for a moment she is gay; she alights
on his shoulder, gives his chin a loving bite, whispers 'You silly ass' and falls on her tiny bed.
The boudoir, which is lit by her, flickers ominously. He is on his knees by the opening.) Her
light is growing faint, and if it goes out, that means she is dead! Her voice is so low I can
scarcely tell what she is saying. She says—she says she thinks she could get well again if
children believed in fairies! (He rises and throws out his arms he knows not to whom,
perhaps to the boys and girls of whom he is not one.) Do you believe in fairies? Say quick
that you believe! If you believe, clap your hands! (Many clap, some don't, a few hiss. Then
perhaps there is a rush of Nanas to the nurseries to see what on earth is happening.
But TINK is saved.) Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! And now to rescue Wendy!
Act 5 Scene 1
Day 82: Log 4.
The jolly roger approaches. Lying low in the water, skull and crossbones flying proud, threatening all
those who see it. There’s Starkey, surveying the waters. Do you think he’s still bitter about his hat? I
bet he can see it drift past the underneath the Neverbird. How in the world did the black pirate
know to move out of hooks way! He’s asleep! Hook really does run a tight ship. Speaking of, Hook is
on the prowl today. With Peter removed at last I wouldn’t be surprised to see him puffed up by the
winds of his success... so why does he look so uneasy?
The crocodile! Look how helpless Hook is, even the iron claw hangs inactive, as if aware that the
crocodile is coming for him. I know he hasn’t earned his dominance over the crew through affection,
but look at them, they’re already mourning.
47
But look! It isn’t the crocodile at all... It’s that scoundrel Peter! Look, he’s circling the ship, and
ticking more superbly than any clock.
HOOK (communing with his ego). How still the night is; nothing sounds alive. Now is the
hour when children in their homes are a-bed; their lips bright-browned with the good-night
chocolate, and their tongues drowsily searching for belated crumbs housed insecurely on
their shining cheeks. Compare with them the children on this boat about to walk the plank.
Split my infinitives, but 'tis my hour of triumph! (Clinging to this fair prospect he dances a
few jubilant steps, but they fall below his usual form.) And yet some disky spirit compels me
now to make my dying speech, lest when dying there may be no time for it. All mortals envy
me, yet better perhaps for Hook to have had less ambition! O fame, fame, thou glittering
bauble, what if the very—No little children love me. I am told they play at Peter Pan, and
that the strongest always chooses to be Peter. They would rather be a Twin than Hook; they
force the baby to be Hook. The baby! that is where the canker gnaws. (He contemplates his
industrious boatswain.) 'Tis said they find Smee lovable. But an hour agone I found him
letting the youngest of them try on his spectacles. Pathetic Smee, the Nonconformist pirate,
a happy smile upon his face because he thinks they fear him! How can I break it to him that
they think him lovable? No, bi-carbonate of Soda, no, not even—— (Another rending of the
calico disturbs him, and he has a private consultation with STARKEY, who turns him round
and evidently assures him that all is well. The peroration of his speech is nevertheless for
ever lost, as eight bells strikes and his crew pour forth in bacchanalian orgy. From, the poop
he watches their dance till it frets him beyond bearing.) Quiet, you dogs, or I'll cast anchor in
you! (He descends to a barrel on which there are playing-cards, and his crew stand waiting,
as ever, like whipped curs.) Are all the prisoners chained, so that they can't fly away?
JUKES. Ay, ay, Captain.
HOOK. Then hoist them up.
STARKEY (raising the door of the hold). Tumble up, you ungentlemanly lubbers.
HOOK (suddenly). So! Now then, you bullies, six of you walk the plank to-night, but I have
room for two cabin-boys.Which of you is it to be? (He returns to his cards.)
TOOTLES (hoping to soothe him by putting the blame on the only person, vaguely
remembered, who is always willing to act as a buffer). You see, sir, I don't think my mother
would like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a pirate, Slightly?
SLIGHTLY (implying that otherwise it would be a pleasure to him to oblige). I don't think so.
Twin, would your mother like——
HOOK. Stow this gab. (To JAY) You boy, you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst
never want to be a pirate, my hearty?
48
JAY (dazzled by being singled out). When I was at school I——what do you think, Maggie?
MAGGIE (stepping into prominence). What would you call me if I joined?
HOOK. Blackbeard Joe.
MAGGIE. Jay, what do you think?
JAY. Stop, should we still be respectful subjects of KingGeorge?
HOOK. You would have to swear 'Down with KingGeorge.'
JAY (grandly). Then I refuse!
MAGGIE. And I refuse.
HOOK. That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. So, my beauty, you are to se your
children walk the plank
WENDY (with noble calmness). Are they to die?
HOOK. They are. Silence all, for a mother's last words to her children.
WENDY. These are my last words. Dear boys, I feel that I have a message to you from your
real mothers, and it is this, 'We hope our sons will die like English gentlemen.'
TOOTLES. I am going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?
FIRST TWIN. What my mother hopes. Jay, what are——
HOOK. Tie her up! Get the plank ready.
STARKEY (hoarsely). It is gone, Captain! There is not a sound.
HOOK (now convinced that some fair spirit watches over him).
STARKEY (paling). I don't like it, messmates!
HOOK. Stow that, Starkey. Do you boys want a touch of the cat before you walk the
plank? (He is more pitiless than ever now that he believes he has a charmed life.) Fetch the
cat, Jukes; it is in the cabin.
JUKES. Ay, ay, sir.
Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat

Its tails are nine you know,
And when they're writ upon your back,
You 're fit to——
49
HOOK. What was that?
SLIGHTLY (solemnly). Two!
HOOK (with an effort). What is the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?
CECCO. The matter with him is he is dead——stabbed.
PIRATES. Bill Jukes dead!
CECCO. The cabin is as black as a pit, but there is something terrible in there: the thing you
heard a-crowing.
HOOK (slowly). Cecco, go back and fetch me out that doodle-doo.
CECCO (unstrung). No, Captain, no. (He supplicates on his knees, but his master advances on
him implacably.)
HOOK (in his most syrupy voice). Did you say you would go, Cecco?
SLIGHTLY (as if he were a bell tolling). Three!
HOOK. 'Sdeath and oddsfish, who is to bring me out that doodle-doo?
STARKEY (injudiciously). Wait till Cecco comes out.
HOOK. I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey.
STARKEY (emphatically). No, by thunder!
HOOK (in that syrupy voice which might be more engaging when accompanied by his
flute). My hook thinks you did. Iwonder if it would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the
hook?
STARKEY. I'll swing before I go in there.
HOOK (gleaming). Is it mutiny? Starkey is ringleader. Shake hands, Starkey.Did any other

gentleman say mutiny?
SLIGHTLY. Four!
HOOK. I will bring out that doodle-doo myself.
HOOK (unsteadily). Something blew out the light.
MULLINS (with dark meaning). Some—thing?
NOODLER. What of Cecco?
50
HOOK. He is as dead as Jukes.
COOKSON. They do say as the surest sign a ship's accurst is when there is one aboard more
than can be accounted for.
NOODLER. I 've heard he allus boards the pirate craft at last. (With dreadful
significance) Has he a tail, Captain?
MULLINS. They say that when he comes it is in the likenessof the wickedest man aboard.
COOKSON (clinching it). Has he a hook, Captain?
HOOK. So you like it, do you! By Caius and Balbus, bullies, here is a notion: open the cabin
door and drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If they kill him we are
so much the better; if he kills them we are none the worse.
MULLINS. The doodle-doo has killed them all!
SEVERAL. The ship 's bewitched.
HOOK. I 've thought it out, lads; there is a Jonah aboard.
SEVERAL (advancing upon him). Ay, a man with a hook.
HOOK (temporising). No, lads, no, it is the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a woman
aboard. We'll right the ship when she has gone.'
MULLINS (lowering his cutlass). It's worth trying.
HOOK. Throw the girl overboard.
MULLINS (jeering). There is none can save you now, missy.
PETER. There is one.
MULLINS. Who is that?
PETER (casting off the cloak). Peter Pan, the avenger!
HOOK (throwing out a suggestion). Cleave him to the brisket.
NOODLER. The ship 's accurst!
PETER. Down, boys, and at them!
WENDY (meeting MAGGIE in a moment's lull). Oh,Maggie, stay with me, protect me!
MAGGIE (reeling). Wendy, I've killed a pirate!
51
WENDY. It's awful, awful.
MAGGIE. No, it isn't, I like it, I like it.
HOOK. Back, back, you mice. It's Hook; do you like him? (He lifts up MAGGIE with his claw
and uses him as a buckler. A terrible voice breaks in.)
PETER. Put up your swords, boys. This man is mine.
HOOK (with curling lip). So, Pan, this is all your doing!
PETER. Ay, Jas Hook, it is all my doing.
HOOK. Proud and insolent youth, prepare to meet thy doom.
PETER. Dark and sinister man, have at thee.
BOYS (exulting). Now, Peter, now!
HOOK. 'Tis some fiend fighting me! Pan, who and what art thou?
PETER (at a venture). I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.
HOOK. To 't again!
HOOK (stung to madness). I'll fire the powder magazine. (He disappears they know not
where.)
CHILDREN. Peter, save us!
HOOK (sitting on the hold with gloomy satisfaction). In two minutes the ship will be blown
to pieces.
CHILDREN. Mercy, mercy!
HOOK. Back, you pewling spawn. I'll show you now the road to dusty death. A holocaust of
children, there is something grand in the idea!
Act 5 scene 2
The nursery appears exactly as it was before but there is now an expectant emptiness. Alexa
seems to have been plugged into the wall once again and switched on. You can see the
window standing open proving Peter is wrong about parents. Martin Darling has fallen
asleep next to the window, his eye tired from scanning the sky in hopes of the children
52
returning. Alexa is charging and has set a reminder, night after night as she always does, for
the children’s night things to be hung up next to their beds.
MARTIN. DARLING (starting up as if we had whispered to her that her brats are coming
back). Wendy, Jay, Maggie! (NANA lifts a sympathetic paw to the poor soul's lap.) I see you
have put their night things out again, Nana! It touches my heart to watch you do that night
after night. But they will never come back.
LIZA (feeling herself degraded by the announcement). Nana's dinner is served.
LIZA. To think I have a master as have changed places with his dog!
MARTIN. DARLING (gently). Out of remorse, Liza.
LIZA (surely exaggerating). I am a married woman myself. I don't think it's respectable to go

to his office in a kennel, with the street boys running alongside cheering. (Even this does not
rouse her mistress, which may have been the honourable intention.) There, that is the cab
fetching him back! (Amid interested cheers from the street the kennel is conveyed to its old
place by a cabby and friend, and MR DARLING scrambles out of it in his office clothes.)
GEORGE DARLING (giving her his hat loftily). If you will be so good, Liza. (The cheering is
resumed.) It is very gratifying!
LIZA (contemptuous). Lot of little boys.
GEORGE DARLING (with the new sweetness of one who has sworn never to lose his temper
again). There were several adults to-day.
MARTIN. DARLING (who has known this for quite a long time). What sort of a day have you
had, George?
GEORGE DARLING. There were never less than a hundred running round the cab cheering,
and when we passed the Stock Exchange the members came out and waved.
MARTIN. DARLING (bravely). I am so proud, George.
GEORGE DARLING (commendation from the dearest quarter ever going to his head). I have
been put on a picture postcard, dear.
MARTIN. DARLING (nobly). Never!
GEORGE DARLING (thoughtlessly). Ah, Martin, we should not be such celebrities if the

children hadn't flown away.
MARTIN. DARLING (startled). George, you are sure you are not enjoying it?
53
GEORGE DARLING (anxiously). Enjoying it! See my punishment: living in a kennel.
MARTIN. DARLING. Forgive me, dear one.
GEORGE DARLING. It is I who need forgiveness, always I, never you. And now I feel
drowsy. (He retires into the kennel.) Won't you play me to sleep on the nursery piano? And
shut that window, Martin dearest; I feel a draught.
MARTIN. DARLING. Oh, George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left
open, for them, always, always.
PETER. Tink, where are you? Quick, close the window. (It closes.) Bar it. (The bar slams
down.) Now when Wendy comes she will think her mother has barred her out, and she will
have to come back to me! (TINKER BELL sulks.) Now, Tink, you and I must go out by the
door. (Doors, however, are confusing things to those who are used to windows, and he is
puzzled when he finds that this one does not open on to the firmament. He tries the other,
and sees the piano player.) It is Wendy's mother! (TINK. pops on to his shoulder and they
peep together.) She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as my mother. (This is a pure
guess.) She is making the box say 'Come home, Wendy.' You will never see Wendy again,
lady, for the window is barred! (He flutters about the room joyously like a bird, but has to
return to that door.) She has laid her head down on the box. There are two wet things
sitting on her eyes. As soon as they go away another two come and sit on her eyes. (She is
heard moaning 'Wendy, Wendy, Wendy.') She wants me to unbar the window. I won't! She
is awfully fond of Wendy. I am fond of her too. We can't both have her, lady! (A funny
feeling comes over him.) Come on, Tink; we don't want any silly mothers.
MAGGIE (looking about him). I think I have been here before.
JAY. It's your home, you stupid.
WENDY. There is your old bed, Maggie.
MAGGIE. I had nearly forgotten.
JAY. I say, the kennel!
WENDY. Perhaps Nana is in it.
JAY (peering). There is a man asleep in it.
WENDY (remembering him by the bald patch). It's father!
JAY. So it is!
MAGGIE. Let me see father. (Disappointed) He is not as big as the pirate I killed.
JAY (perplexed). Wendy, surely father didn't use to sleep in the kennel?
54
WENDY (with misgivings). Perhaps we don't remember the old life as well as we thought we

did.
JAY (chilled). It is very careless of mother not to be here when we come back.
WENDY. H'sh! (She goes to the door and peeps.) That is her playing! (They all have a peep.)
MAGGIE. Who is that lady?
JAY. H'sh! It's mother.
MAGGIE. Then are you not really our mother, Wendy?
WENDY (with conviction). Oh dear, it is quite time to be back!
JAY. Let us creep in and put our hands over her eyes.
WENDY (more considerate). No, let us break it to her gently.
MARTIN. DARLING. I see them in their beds so often in my dreams that I seem still to see
them when I am awake! I'll not look again. (She sits down and turns away her face from the
bump, though of course they are still reflected in her mind.) So often their silver voices call
me, my little children whom I'll see no more.
WENDY (perhaps rather silvery). Mother!
MARTIN. DARLING (without moving). That is Wendy.
JAY, (quite gruff). Mother!
MARTIN. DARLING. Now it is Jay.
MAGGIE (no better than a squeak). Mother!
MARTIN. DARLING. Now Maggie. And when they call I stretch out my arms to them, but
they never come, they never come!
LIZA. What is the matter, boy?
SLIGHTLY. They have all got a mother except me.
LIZA (starting back). Is your name Slightly?
SLIGHTLY. Yes'm.
LIZA. Then I am your mother.
SLIGHTLY. How do you know?
55
LIZA (the good-natured creature). I feel it in my bones.
WENDY. Peter!
PETER (looking up casually). Hullo, Wendy.
WENDY (making a last attempt). You don't feel you would like to say anything to my
parents, Peter, about a very sweet subject?
PETER. No, Wendy.
WENDY. About me, Peter?
PETER. No. (He gets out his pipes, which she knows is a very bad sign. She appeals with her
arms to Martin. DARLING, who is probably thinking that these children will all need to be
tied to their beds at night.)
MARTIN. DARLING (from the window). Peter, where are you? Let me adopt you too.
PETER. Would you send me to school?
MARTIN. DARLING (obligingly). Yes.
PETER. And then to an office?
MARTIN. DARLING. I suppose so.
PETER. Soon I should be a man?
MARTIN. DARLING. Very soon.
PETER (passionately). I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things. No one is going
to catch me, lady, and make me a man. I want always to be a little child and to have fun.
MARTIN. DARLING (shivering every time WENDY pursues him in the air). Where are you to

live, Peter?
PETER. In the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it high up among the tree-
tops where they sleep at night.
WENDY (rapturously). To think of it!
MARTIN. DARLING. I thought all the fairies were dead.
56
WENDY (almost reprovingly). No indeed! Their mothers drop the babies into the Never
birds' nests, all mixed up with the eggs, and the mauve fairies are boys and the white ones
are girls, and there are some colours who don't know what they are. The row the children
and the birds make at bath time is positively deafening.
PETER. I throw things at them.
WENDY. You will be rather lonely in the evenings, Peter.
PETER. I shall have Tink.
WENDY (flying up to the window). Mother, may I go?
MARTIN. DARLING (gripping her for ever). Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I
mean to keep you.
WENDY. But he does so need a mother.
MARTIN. DARLING. So do you, my love.
PETER. Oh, all right.
MARTIN. DARLING (magnanimously). But, Peter, I shall let her go to you once a year for a
week to do your spring cleaning.
MARTIN. DARLING. Say good-night, Wendy.
WENDY. I couldn't go down just for a minute?
MARTIN. DARLING. No.
WENDY. Good-night, Peter!
PETER. Good-night, Wendy!
WENDY. Peter, you won't forget me, will you, before spring-cleaning time comes?
Year later
WENDY (who knows better this time than to be demonstrative at partings). Well, good-bye,

Peter; and remember not to bite your nails.
PETER. Good-bye, Wendy.
57
WENDY. I'll tell mother all about the spring cleaning and the house.
PETER (who sometimes forgets that she has been here before). You do like the house?
WENDY. Of course it is small. But most people of our size wouldn't have a house at all. (She
should not have mentioned size, for he has already expressed displeasure at her growth.
Another thing, one he has scarcely noticed, though it disturbs her, is that she does not see
him quite so clearly now as she used to do.) When you come for me next year, Peter—you
will come, won't you?
PETER. Yes. (Gloating) To hear stories about me!
WENDY. It is so queer that the stories you like best should be the ones about yourself.
PETER (touchy). Well, then?
WENDY. Fancy your forgetting the lost boys, and even Captain Hook!
PETER. Well, then?
WENDY. I haven't seen Tink this time.
PETER. Who?
WENDY. Oh dear! I suppose it is because you have so many adventures.
PETER (relieved). 'Course it is.
WENDY. If another little girl—if one younger than I am&—(She can't go on.) Oh, Peter, how I
wish I could take you up and squdge you! (He draws back.) Yes, I know. (She gets astride her
broomstick.) Home! (It carries her from him over the tree-tops.
THE END
58

Peter Pan Full Script in Progress

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What is the play about?

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Peter Pan Exeter College Rehearsal Script

Peter Pan – Barnfield Theatre Rehearsal Script

Opening Song: Never

Never ever leave this place behind,

This warm and lamp lit comforting room;

Never ever leave and go outside

Into the smog and gathering gloom;

Never ever heed the sound of the bell

Calling us all to rise and leave;

Never ever quit this cosy cell

Of hopes and dreams and make believe;

Time is the enemy; time is the curse;

Each day threatening worse and worse;

Never grow older, never grow tall,

Never ever ever change (at all)

Never have a husband or wife let’s vow,

Never have children, we’re children now,

Never go to work, never be a slave,

Never take one step closer to the grave,

Perhaps if we stay here, closing our eyes

And laying our hands up over our ears,

We can shut out the world outside,

And halt the ever-advancing years;

Perhaps if we count and run and hide,

Perhaps we can, perhaps we will each one of us

Stay forever a child, and time will stand

Perfectly still, and time will stand

Perfectly still, and time will stand

Twitchers 1, 2, & 3 enter

To the delight of the children

And no doubt the irritation of passers by.

Though the card now states ‘no children’

And the scrapings of his bank account.

Ooh have you seen those bedsheets? They’re stunning!

I think he made them from their old wedding suits.

Says his two lines

“I wish he hadn’t spun in quite like a tornado”

“at least he’s well dressed...”

MARTIN DARLING. And who are you?

JAY Now let us pretend we have a baby.

JAY I am happy to acquaint you, Mr Darling, you are now a father.

WENDY Boy or girl?

JAY (POINTS AT WENDY). Girl.

WENDY. You meanie. Go on.

JAY I am happy to acquaint you, Mr Darling, you are again a father.

WENDY Boy or girl?

WENDY Daddy, it's horrible of him.

MAGGIE (expanding). Now, have me.

JAY. We don't want any more.

MAGGIE (contracting). Am I not to be born at all?

JAY. Two is enough.

MAGGIE (wheedling). Come on Jay. (Appalled) Nobody wants me!

MARTIN. DARLING. I do.

MAGGIE (with a glimmer of hope). Boy or girl?

MARTIN. DARLING (with one of those happy thoughts of his). Girl.