Our favourite eternal youth takes flight
Peter Pan National’s Olivier Theatre Peter Pan and the Starcatcher Royal & Derngate, Northampton
Well over a century after Peter Pan alighted on stage and delighted Edwardian England, we’re still mad about the boy. JM Barrie’s 1904 play is a homage to childhood – and a requiem for it. That proud boy “who would not grow up” is the embodiment of all our carefree yesterdays. But in avoiding the trials of adulthood, Pan also fails to form the attachments that make life bearable. Stirring, timeless, wondrous, Peter Pan is perfect as it is. Has a fictional creation ever been more interfered with, though? Before heading to the National for its Christmas offering of Peter Pan – directed by Sally Cookson, with input from the companies at the Bristol Old Vic, where it was first staged in 2012, and now at the NT – I caught a schools matinee in Northampton of a convoluted, fairly pointless prequel. Receiving its European premiere,
Peter Pan and the Starcatcher is adapted by Rick Elice from the first in a series of backstory novels by fellow Americans Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson. Despite some breathless ensemble work from Luke Sheppard’s cast, it’s hard to say that the show flies.
We glean how a shipwrecked, nameless orphan boy (a twinkly-eyed Michael Shea) becomes “Pan” and acquires his eternal youth; also how a villain called “Black Stache” (played with consummate dastardliness by Greg Haiste) becomes Hook – the thesis being that the pair were “made” for each other. “You’re the yin to my yang,” as the rogue says. I’m afraid that this sort of spurious exercise should be made to walk the plank.
Peter Pan at the National is far more respectful to the original, but takes some very inventive liberties. There’s no attempt at “barely visible” wires – instead, in keeping with an aesthetic that strips away Edwardiana, the mechanics of the flying are there for all to see. Pan (a delightfully spry Paul Hilton) and co get attached to harnesses in plain sight and are hoisted aloft and even swung out into the auditorium with the help of crew members, who act as counterweights, ascending and descending the side scaffolding like frenetic monkeys.
I loved its invitation to our makebelieve, although some might judge it a cop-out: jaws may not drop at the flight from the nursery across London, and the rather rudimentary crocodile will hardly induce night terrors.
The second bold stroke is that Hook is played by an actress – who also doubles as Mrs Darling. This emphasises the fear Pan has of yielding outright to feminine charms and the strict regimen of medicine-doling matriarchy – and Anna Francolini (standing in for Sophie Thompson, who broke her wrist in rehearsals) seems to channel all of Helena Bonham Carter’s recent screen villainesses in her metallic-toothed, fright-dressed nemesis. Superb.
There’s a Seventies adventure playground vibe to Neverland, where a tin-can serves as a toy telephone and bicycle pumps are used as walkietalkies. Those of a certain generation won’t just feel the usual pangs watching Madeleine Worrall’s Wendy grow into motherhood and sadly greet again the still-youthful Pan – they’ll also be catching a glimpse of their own pre-technological childhoods.