Anthony Head Credits

Children's Party at the Palace

Television appearance (UK)

Role: Captain Hook
Original air date: June 25, 2006
Network: BBC1

Summary of Anthony Head's storyline: In honour of Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday, a party is being held at Buckingham Palace. Invited, along with British children, are various characters from British children's literature. But only heroes are to be included. When the baddies, such as Captain Hook and Cruella DeVille, discover that they are not invited, they decide to try and ruin the party for everyone else. Amongst the plots they come up with is one to have Burglar Bill break into Buckingham Palace and steal the Queen's handbag. This is where she keeps the royal spectacles and without those, she cannot read the royal speech which will result in the party being ruined. This plot is initially successful, resulting in various attempts by the goodies to try and locate the missing handbag to save the day.

Meanwhile, the other baddies set out to try and prevent the goodies from even arriving at the party. Captain Hook and his pirates ambush Peter Pan, Wendy and the Lost Boys. A fight ensues, in which it appears that Captain Hook may win. But then Robin Hood and his Merry Men arrive. Robin and Captain Hook exchange insults which become more and more childish before finally resorting to sticking their tongues out at each other. Peter Pan interrupts this display and resumes his swordfight with Captain Hook. The children in the audience attempt to distract Captain Hook by chanting "tick tock". Although he momentarily believes his enemy the crocodile has arrived, Hook soon realizes it is the children. Eventually, Hook is frightened off by the arrival of the Gruffalo who chases him off the stage. This allows Peter Pan, Robin Hood and the friends to arrive at the party without any further problem.

Most of the various other baddies also fail at their attempts to waylay the goodies. They all gather back at their lair and discover that only Burglar Bill was successful in his mission to steal the Queen's handbag. But this still doesn't stop the party from happening so they decide to make one last attempt by making a cake with a spell that will turn all who eat it into mice.

With the help of a spell from Harry Potter and his friends, Burglar Bill is caught and the Queen's handbag recovered. Burglar Bill attempts to point out that without the baddies, there wouldn't be stories to be told. The other baddies arrive on the scene with their cake and serve it to all the gathered goodies. But the spell fails, thanks to the arrival of Mary Poppins. She points out that there never has been and never will be a children's story in which the baddies win.

At the end, the entire cast comes on stage to sing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The Queen (the real one) then arrives on the stage and is given her handbag, thus allowing her to read her speech in praise of British children's literature.

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