Shivering timbers globally today is news that Christopher Walken has signed on to play everyone's favourite coathanger-handed buccaneer in NBC's Peter Pan Live. Sure, it's a US network TV show that may never see the light of day on this side of the pond but it's Christopher Walken so we thought you'd want to know.
The network is promising to take full advantage of Walken's dancing skills with possibly "the first tap-dancing Captain Hook you've ever seen". Elaborates NBC entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt, "He's one of the most unique actors in our business. He might really just be a song-and-dance man at heart."
Walken, of course, cut his teeth on TV as Ronnie Walken and in musicals, before moving onto the big screen in the early '70s. "It’s wonderful after all this time, at this point in my career, to be in this classic musical I watched as a child", says Walken, "and to work with Neil Meron and Craig Zadan again after Hairspray. It’s a chance to put on my tap shoes again."
This musical treatment first brought James M. Barrie's tale to US TV in 1955 with Universal Television broadcasting a Broadway production to an audience of 65 million. NBC subsequently showed it in 1956 and 1960, but unusually its new version will debut a female Peter Pan. Kristen Bell was approached for the part, but a scheduling conflict has ruled her out. List your suggestions in the usual place.