Wendy & Peter Pan, Barbican Theatre review - mixed bag of panto and comic play, turned up to 11

On paper, this RSC revival of Ella Hickson’s 2013 adaptation sounds just the ticket: a feminist spin on the familiar JM Barrie story, with a gorgeous set, lots of wire work and all graced with the orotund tones of Toby Stephens as Captain Hook. In action, this mix doesn’t work as well as you want it to.

I decided fairly quickly that I didn’t really know who the piece was for. The RSC gave us Matilda so it has previous in devising superior entertainment that older children can enjoy, their accompanying adults too. But here the younger part of the audience seem to be the prime concern, with a few speeches about inequality of the sexes and hurrah for suffragettes spliced in. Wendy (Hannah Saxby) didn’t really seem that different from the brave though maternal big sister in the book, just much, much louder and ultimately more intent on her career opportunities. And the marital woes of the Darlings (Lolita Chakrabarti and Toby Stephens, pictured below as Hook) – she, tired of her second-class status as a company wife, he, just tired – are like flimsy bookends to the main action.

This chiild-centred focus also seems to have affected the tenor of the production, directed here, as before, by Jonathan Munby. It begins as a lightly comic play, but soon there are panto elements, and the two modes don’t always gel. When a panto character dies, you don’t care that much, any more than you might when Tom flattens Jerry with a frying pan. Death in a drama is another matter, even if it is dressed up as “an awfully big adventure”. So when seven-year-old Tom Darling (Alexander Moloney) dies of what seems like a bad cold in the first 30 minutes, that should be a rather poignant moment. But all goes thundering on, with Wendy screeching, Peter Pan arriving with a thunderclap and his “shadows” cavorting around in the Darling children’s bedroom.

This Neverland is clearly constructed around a class system. The Pirate crew, naturally, are from the wrong side of the tracks, whereas their devilish leader, Hook, is all public school swagger. This we expect. But the fairytale society the middle-class little Darlings are enticed by is populated by a “street” Peter Pan (Daniel Krikler), like an avian Artful Dodger – and actually quite sexy, which seems wrong – while Tinkerbell (Charlotte Mills), in a dirty bedraggled tutu, is a slobby pleb known as “Tink”. There’s genuine stage magic in her appearances as a little darting light, flitting from Shadow to Shadow and bitching nonstop in a cartoon voice: a skilful piece of choreography and timing, immaculately performed. But the enchantment here is patchy.

Hand in hand with this confusing focus goes a mix of comic acting styles. Audiences of seven-year-olds don’t really notice this: they just respond to Wendy shouting “frog balls” when she sneezes and John Darling (Fred Woodley Evans) running madly around in pyjamas in search of battles. There’s a quietly funny moment when Father plays with his offspring and sits with a tasselled lampshade on his head. But the comedy too often tends towards over-excited squeaky jollity and exaggeration, with liberal sprinklings of panto-camp from Smee (Scott Karim). 

A standout in straddling the play-panto divide is Joe Hewetson as Martin the Cabin Boy (pictured above, centre) whose Julian Clary tendencies never go over the top; he’s a gentle type, clever enough to bale out of the Jolly Roger and join the Lost Boys, and the actor too seems to know exactly what he’s doing. Stephens, though, is a fairly cardboard cutout villain while stopping short of being a toothsome panto-nasty. And as George Darling he has to make his marital unhappiness comic. Why?

The little band of Lost Boys work well, especially the talkative Slightly of the family Soiled (Max Lauder), given sweet support by Tootles (Kyle Ndukuba), who at one point starts pondering the big questions of the universe, like to be or not … before being told to shut up. Ami Tredrea’s Tiger Lily is suitably athletic and fierce. And a big gold star for Harrison Claxton’s Crocodile (pictured below), dressed in smart suit and topper, but sliding energetically along the ground, limbs sticking up at angles, just like a croc’s.The movement in the production is one of its greatest assets such as the Shadows’ ensemble dance routines (choreography by Lucy Hind) and the exhilarating wire work. That also delivers a genuine sight gag when Tink has to make a rapid exit to dodge the pirates’ cannonballs, suddenly lifting off high up into the flies like a Harrier jet. But Hickson’s script isn’t enough fun for the grown-ups, who have to settle for in-jokes like Smee in decorator mode talking about swatches and daft Farrow & Ball paint names, and telling Hook (with whom he has an ambiguous relationship) that he’ll see him back at the cottage …

John Richmond’s design looks a treat, especially the giant tree that descends in Neverland and the moving Jolly Roger. (The Shadows do sterling work as slick scene-changers and prop movers.) But the whole needs to be turned down from 11 and the comic scenes tightened up. The mixed tone isn’t helped by Shuhei Kamimura’s rather standard-issue music, which signals a kind of dramatic portentousness that isn’t on the stage. This is not a production graced with sentiment, though a dash of it would be welcome. Peter Pan may choose to stay a carefree little boy rather than become a man in a suit tied down by routine domesticity, as Hook depicts adulthood, but it’s a bittersweet defeat, not a riotous happy ending. And Wendy’s “liberation” will have a hard row to hoe. 

• Wendy and Peter Pan at the Barbican Theatre until 22 November
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