Review: WENDY AND PETER PAN at Barbican

Christmas is almost upon us, and the usual rag-tag of festive-themed shows are in the process of opening. Along with the London Palladium’s glitzy annual comedy panto helmed as ever by Julian Clary, this year there are a number of other big bashes ranged around the capital, not least, the hotly anticipated RSC revisionist take on Peter Pan at the Barbican. So how fares Wendy and Peter Pan with its deliberate top billing reserved for the lead female character?

First off, this is a Christmas show (Oh no it isn’t, Oh yes it is) which stirs the usual mildly amusing debate about whether a traditional family story staged during the festive season still effectively constitutes a panto. JMBarrie’s tale of the boy who never grew up, complete with its piratical arch villain Hook, has long been one of those yarns which seems capable of bearing a buckled boot in both camps (try saying that after a few too many festive sherries)!

Ella Hickson’s version attempts to connect with younger adult audiences by exploring Wendy’s dilemma — namely, should she be selfish and insist on having adventure and fun just like one of the boys, or adopt the age-old traditional mum-substitute role, thereby lumbering herself with looking after the Lost Boys who, due to a lack of female kindness have degenerated into a rabble and are strongly in need of guidance.

For all the hype around its new nomenclature, the production hardly deviates much from the original story and certainly falls short of delivering anything close to a feminist revision. Only once after much wrangling and disagreement, do Wendy, Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily finally agree to work together to develop a modern collective approach to the problem of the hour — namely, digging their menfolk out of yet another boisterous predicament. The details are conveniently batted away and it turns out what they really needed all along was a Fwendy (muffled sound of theatre cynics reaching for buckets).

The cast of Wendy and Peter Pan. Photo by Manuel Harlan

The acting most closely reflects the child fantasy themes inherent in the piece but Hannah Saxby as Wendy, certainly attempts to find depths in her yearning to find her own lost boy, brother Tom, who dies in the opening scene, causing an unravelling in the Darling family. Otherwise, Daniel Kirkler offers a serviceable and engagingly cock-sure Peter, occasionally revealing the pressures of leadership in his loss of confidence. Meanwhile, as Hook, Toby Stephens (forever basking in the warm shadow of his own much revered mother, Dame Maggie) reworks his sneering turn as swordsman and Bond villain Gustav Graves (from Die Another Day). In the dual role of Mr Darling in the opening and closing scenes, he defers to Lolita Chakrabarti, who, as Mrs Darling, leaves us in no doubt from where Wendy derives her spunk and inner strength.

Most of the fight scenes are delivered boisterously, though with perhaps less stagecraft than one would expect from the RSC and while the set design by Colin Richmond promises a heady mix of nostalgia and dynamism, some scenes are severely hampered by an awkward base design which fights against the overlayed video projections by Taiki Ueda. Having said that, when the pirate ship arrives early in the second act, it certainly makes a splash, awakening the otherwise largely traditional deployments which include a surfeit of scenes requiring the leads to fly. For any director — in this case, Jonathan Munby — this vital element will always be something of a headache, but here, it appears to have been well-rehearsed as cast members resolutely avoided the usual entanglements with Charlotte Mills as Tink, notable for using her wand to ensure mid-air distance was maintained.

Wendy and Peter Pan runs 2 hours 45 mins, including the 20 min interval and continues at Barbican until 22nd November.