JADAR

★★★★☆

Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a spectacularly bizarre comedy of magical proportions with intentional mishaps that will have you rolling in your seats with laughter and an endearing cast perfectly satirising the play, musical and pantomime genre whilst “unexpected” shenanigans ensue.

I knew I was in for a good one at the first sight of the merchandise, with “Peter Nap”, scribbles and mugs with crooked writing, and the best bit… a programme filled with little errors from a wordsearch with Tinker Bull and Banquo’s Ghost, to alterations, scribbles, fake ads and weird notes.

This is certainly an immersive experience… Right from the get-go, as the audience take their seats, is a variety of clunky or classical music, meanwhile cast members like the Stage Manager (Trevor Watson) search the crowd, hand out leads to power the set lighting, and generally act like the show is a mess before it even begins.

Then we see Max Bennett (who will be playing the amazing crocodile and Michael Darling) peeking out of the curtains, Peter Pan (Jonathan Harris) wandering through the audience, and a bunch of last-minute stage preparations, all equally chaotic.

Before the “beginning” of the show, the comedically irate panto-hater Chris Bean (George Darling and Captain Hook) and the hilarious Robert Grove (assistant “co-director”, Starkey, and Nana the dog) join to introduce the production before a swarm of people enter holding the title cards for “Act One of Peter Nap”.

In comes the eccentric narrator, Francis Beaumont, showering the stage in handfuls of glitter fairy dust before pyrotechnic and platform issues which become one of many great running gags. Francis also plays Cecco the Pirate, whose best bits include segments where he has to improvise props like hand sanitiser as rum, or a six magazine or map as a spy glass, and his shining moment… a breakout into Backstreet Boys’ ‘Everybody’ to distract the audience from the mounting chaos as the show literally crumbles around him! 

Each character has their own running gags, whether it be the brilliant stupidity and forgetfulness of Dennis Tyde playing John and Mr. Smee, the clumsiness and stage fright of Lucy Grove (Tootles), the clashing romance between Max, Jonathan and Sandra (Wendy), or the many overlapping roles of Annie Twilloil as she alternates between Mary Darling, the Housekeeper Lisa, and a hip-thrusting, electrifying version of Tinkerbell (if you’ve seen the show then you’ll get the joke)! 

My favourite gags mainly involved Robert Grove, whether it be his illegible ramblings as a parrot-shouldering pirate, his amazing performance as the dog who gets stuck in the dog-flap not two minutes into the show, or missing all his cues and causing chaos as people entered and exited through his door. He was also particularly great as Peter’s shadow with a smooth little jig before he is “stitched” back to Peter and has to mimic his moves- although not all that successfully!

Other pranks included a hydraulic bowling pin system, breaking bedposts, a malfunctioning spinning set, an unsteady pirate ship, breakable set pieces, neon fish, lazy setworkers, bums and bikinis, crazy harness work, car honks, radio antenna noises, rag dolls, electrocutions, panto gags, the memorable moment Nana the dog is finally cut out of the door during Mary’s beautiful song, and many, MANY more. 

But I particularly loved the underdog story of Max Bennett, whose acting is ridiculed and his crush on Sandra is outed through “accidentally” played tapes instead of panpipe music. After the director states, “Everybody hates the crocodile” and that Max was only in the show so it would be funded, the audience booed and “awwwwwed” as Max shyly left the stage with his little “crocodile trolley” in hand. With this, I was eager to see him succeed… that little crocodile (“snap, snap, snap”) was a star! 

While a few jokes outlasted their welcome occasionally, the humour was spot on and had the whole audience in hysterics throughout. One could argue that a limitation of the show would be the jerky back and forth as things continue to halt and go wrong, but this is one of the things that made it so special… it continued its momentum despite the chaotic nature of its comedy stunts and moments of audience heckling (well handled by Chris Bean, might I add). 

Overall, it was a great comedic show with phenomenal costumes, gags, actors and prop pieces… I couldn’t recommend it more for a fun family night out!

Peter Pan Goes Wrong runs at Opera House Manchester until March 31 and tours the UK until April 14.

Photo: Pamela Raith Photography