PETER PAN
New Wimbledon
Theatre, London SW19
Opened 16 December, 2010
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Most pantomime stories are centuries old, virtual if not outright folk
tales, and so offer generous latitude for adaptation. But Peter Pan was written as a play and
remains in copyright (albeit through a statutory extension for
charitable purposes), so rather more respect and discretion are
required. Thus runs the theory, but not for Eric Potts. If Potts has
heard of subtleties, he thinks they are things on the bottom of foreign
films. That’s not a great joke, but it is parsecs ahead of any of his.
He has turned J.M. Barrie’s creation into a loud, brash monstrosity
flayed of any childlike wonder and instead a vehicle for stars that
kids will either not have heard of or not understand.
David Hasselhoff as Captain Hook seems game for a laugh, but delivers
every single line face-front with florid gestures as if in a cartoon of
grand opera. In place of Hook’s henchman Smee, the pirate crew of the
“Jolly Roger” is now augmented by Roger the cabin boy (thank you, Mr
Potts), played by Louis (or Louie – the programme seems uncertain)
Spence of TV’s Pineapple Dance
Studios. In panto there is nothing like a dame, and indeed
Spence is nothing like a dame, not even when he appears in gratuitous
drag. Elsewhere in London there is an adult panto entitled Snow White And The Seven Poofs; all
eight together could not possibly be as camp as Spence, nor as
self-adoring. To accommodate him, the script inserts a series of dance
numbers, a string of crass gay jokes (I was genuinely surprised he
didn’t pop up during the “clap hands if you believe in fairies”
routine) and a “Crew’s [or “Cruise”?] Cabaret”.
In order to make room for this tripe, cuts have been made, such as the
characters of Mr & Mrs Darling. That’s right: the parents have
vanished from this tale about the inevitability of growing up. With
them go the final two scenes and any substantive ending, and also the
bulk of the opening scene. Instead we get a trio of singing black
housemaids, the Panettes. Peter Pan may be many things, but Ike Turner
isn’t one of them. These chantoozies crop up repeatedly: as Indian
squaws, as mermaids (in mid-air!) or simply asking whether we Know The
Way To Neverland (instead of San Jose) or backing Wendy when she
informs the Lost Boys that she Says A Little Prayer For them.
This show is an object example of what I call the Postmodernist
Defence: “Yes, it’s rubbish, but we know it’s rubbish, and that makes
it good and us clever.” No, it makes you contemptuous and contemptible
for insulting us with what you know
to be rubbish. I had to make my own entertainment, which I did by
playing “spot the occasional line from the actual play”. For children,
there is less than nothing, only the horror of watching their parents
regress into complete whooping infantilism. Ian Talbot’s production
isn’t cheap or shoddy as such (although Spence is far less talented a
dancer than he believes himself to be); what it does, it does with
brio. But what it does is to moronically travesty all aspects of the
seasonal family show. It is everything that both Peter Pan and panto shouldn’t be.