Where the magic happens

AS DAVE MCNEILLY walks me from the backstage door through the belly of the Grand Canal Theatre he cuts an unexpectedly calm figure.

Dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans, it is hard to tell that the associate producer of Peter Pan the Musical is partly responsible for the world premiere of a show costing €2.2 million and involving a cast and crew of approximately 80 people.

“We’ve got a cast of 21 and then there are 16 local children playing The Lost Boys,” he says. “In terms of crew; I’ll put it to you this way, we’ve taken out 614 hotel nights. And that’s condensed into three or four weeks. So that’s quite a lot of people.”