I'm preempting my next scheduled post with a Drop-the-Dead-Donkey item: Peter Pan at Bristol Old Vic. Based on JM Barrie's story and devised by the company, this is the most beautiful, funny, and deeply moving show you'll see this Christmas. Tristan Sturrock is simply incredible as the timeless child of our cultural fantasy, and the entire cast can move you to tears of mirth or sorrow at a plangent chord from the ~ excellent ~ live musicians. Peter and Wendy poignantly apart, the rest of the cast morphed thinly disguised (except fatly Tootles) and delightfully from Lost Boys to pirates to mermaids, the lagoon scene a high point of glam cross-dressing and bubbles with superb crescendo to that famous To die would be an awfully big adventure line. Act two returns us gradually to reality, with a scene of extraordinary beauty as Wendy decides to grow up and Peter is left falling slowly, agonisingly, back into his pram. But that's not the end, of course, as there's redemption and reconciliation and more music, and Wendy's daughter flies once more into the magic world of Peter Pan... a fabulous show, and a must-see for anyone who can get to Bristol before 19 January.