'Wendy & Peter Pan' review — this rip-roaring adventure sprinkled with fairy dust is a spectacular family treat

Read our review of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Wendy & Peter Pan, now in performances at the Barbican to 22 November.

Summary

• JM Barrie's classic novel Peter Pan is brought to the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company
• Ella Hickson adapts this awfully big adventure
• Hannah Saxby gives an expressive performance as the determined Wendy Darling
• Tony Stephens is a dashing and dangerous Captain Hook

With spectacular flying sequences, swashbuckling swordfights, a pirate ship, and much more, it would be difficult not to be swept away by the awfully big adventure embodied by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Wendy & Peter Pan, adapted from JM Barrie's classic tale by Ella Hickson. First performed at Stratford-upon-Avon in 2013, Jonathan Munby’s rip-roaring production now makes its London debut as a pre-festive family treat.

Hickson’s version of the Darling clan comprises four adopted siblings (they’re extra special for having been chosen, as their mother observes): the titular Wendy (Hannah Saxby), the gung-ho John (Fred Woodley Evans), the plant- and mermaid-loving Michael (Kwaku Mills), and delicate little Tom (Alexander Malony), who dies early in the proceedings. The Darlings become a family wracked with grief and the children (or at least Wendy) embark on the trip to Neverland, the place where Lost Boys go, to bring Tom back.

Wendy, played by an expressive Hannah Saxby, is stuck with the thankless job of always being the sensible one. Toby Stephens’s insinuating Captain Hook (he’s frightened of ageing but still campily dashing) is especially dangerous in the way in which he expresses understanding for how she feels when she’s otherwise taken for granted by little boys who have no idea of the burdens that she carries. The breakfast sequence in which she’s beleaguered by demanding little men would test the patience of a saint.

Lurking at the window outside the nursery, Daniel Krilik’s Peter is loose of limb and a true nature spirit with a mercurial character. Accompanied by an ensemble of balletic shadows, he cuts quite a dash and it’s easy to understand why the sheltered Wendy would be drawn to him.

The brightest stars of the show are visual: Colin Richmond’s set design, comprising the perfect Edwardian nursery fit for junior royalty with its rose window and dolls’ house the height of an adult; the Lost Boys’ lair filled with repurposed objects; and the fearsome pirate ship. The choreography by Lucy Hind and fight direction by Terry King provide a constant whirl of activity and adventure.

Among the colourful ensemble, there are entertaining turns from the lovelorn Smee (Karim), who dreams of retiring to a country cottage with his beloved captain, cabin boy Martin (Joe Hewetson), a pirate who is really a Lost Boy at heart, and Charlotte Mills’s Tink is a gravel-voiced harridan in a garish ginger wig and tattered tutu. She isn’t the motherly type, yet the boys would be even more lost without her abrasive authority.

The equilibrium between humour and poignancy isn’t always ideally balanced, especially during and following the final battle. The references to “rizz” and “sliding into DMs” are overly try-hard and the messages about taking responsibility vs enjoying being young are a touch muddled.

The feminist revisionism also isn’t fully convincing. Wendy, Tink, and Tiger Lily (Ami Tredrea), who are pitted against each other while the boys are all allowed to be friends (even if they do spend a lot of time beating each other up), eventually form a sisterhood. However, it seems a missed opportunity not to give Mrs Darling (Lolita Chakrabarti) a Neverland counterpart, whereas Stephens doubles as Hook and Mr Darling.

Yet the production honours the fact that darkness is never far from the surface in Barrie’s mystifying fairy tale. All in all, this is a gorgeous spectacle and real “total theatre” experience sprinkled with plenty of fairy dust to delight every member of the family.

Wendy & Peter Pan is at the Barbican to 22 November. Book Wendy & Peter Pan tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Wendy & Peter Pan (Photos by Manuel Harlan)