OPEN-air theatre company SISATA is back on home ground on Portland on Sunday 8th September, nearing the end of a lengthy national and local summer tour, with a production of Peter Pan, in the setting which inspired this retelling of JM Barrie’s famous tale.

The performance, next to Portland Bill lighthouse, features four local professional actors (and some members of the audience), with Jake Baker as Peter Pan, Sophie Powell as Wendy and Tinkerbell, and Portland’s own Anna Takashima as many other characters.

The SISATA tour, with venues in Kent, Sussex, London and Yorkshire, has won audience praise as ‘magical’, ‘amazing’ and ‘fun’.

As with the company’s 2023 production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, SISATA has once again looked at the Isle of Portland for inspiration as a mysterious island where strange things happen. In this adaptation which remains otherwise true to Barrie’s story, the natives of Neverland are real people from Portland’s history, the mercreatures include the Veästa, and the crocodile is translated into the pliosaur recently excavated from Jurassic Coast cliffs. Captain Hook and his pirates are still very much in evidence, and the audience is encouraged to sing along to the pirate song.

This Dorset-born production has even managed to have its puppets designed by a distant relative of the book’s author, Sarah Butterworth, whose works – the pliosaur and Neverbird – have become firm audience favourites. The music has been written and is performed live by Dorchester folk musician Alastair Braidwood, who also fulfils the traditional dual role of Mr Darling and Captain Hook.

Peter Pan is a co-production between SISATA and Poole Lighthouse, where the final performance takes place on Wednesday 18th September at 7pm.

Pictured at Maumbury Rings are Peter Pan (Jake Baker) and Captain Hook (Alastair Braidwood). Photograph by Dorset Morri’arty