It's 121 years since JM Barrie came up with Peter Pan. But English teacher Mr Digby Don finds that the play still feels as timeless and charming as ever.
Age versus youth, good versus evil, and freedom versus constraint – oppositions explored by J. M. Barrie in his 1911 novel Peter and Wendy – come to the fore in this Harrodian production. I hadn’t realised that Barrie adapted his 1904 play Peter Pan into the novel Peter and Wendy, a version that gives Wendy space as an eponymous protagonist. It makes sense. The Peter Pan fans (and to an extent the Mary Poppins fans) amongst us realise now that we grew up with images of Edwardian Britain – of apparent stability and patriarchal norms – challenged by these heroines. What was J.M. Barrie really asking the reader? What does this adaptation ask of the audience?
The play opens with Wendy and her mother. Wendy holds a telescope to her eye and observes the stars. The telescope could well symbolise a desire for discovery and the stars the unknown questions of the universe. Wendy desires both. Her mother desires that she attends finishing school to become a wife and mother. Minnie (playing Wendy) and Petra (playing her mother in evening dress befitting her class) play out this conflict with impressive understanding.
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This foregrounds the arrival of Peter Pan, played by Thomas. Thomas’s acting is strong and I also really enjoyed the facial expressions and movement of Peter’s shadow, played by Freddie. As Peter explains to Wendy who he is and where he comes from, it all came flooding back: Capt. Hook, the Lost Boys, the second star on the right. For Peter, John (played by Teddy) and Michael (played by Harper) there is also pressure to grow up into a particular type of man, to embody the father and aspire to be the executive. John captured this well in his moment of hesitation before jumping out of the window and flying off. Should he report the whole thing to his father or throw caution to the wind?
With the stage set up convincingly as a bedroom, I wondered how the set would shift to Neverland. In a clever move, Peter and the children set off on scooters, lights flashing. This gave the actors a chance to use the rest of the theatre space, while the set was rolled from a London townhouse into an imaginary world.
The curtain came up on Neverland and immediately we were introduced to Capt. Hook and Smee. Played by Evangeline, Hook was clearly the baddy the play needed. As he said later, ‘every hero needs a villain’. Evangeline’s Hook seethed with menace and had some excellent lines to match, ‘we do not control this place if we do not control him […] Pan is key to Neverland.’ There was something of the dastardly cunning of Dustin Hoffman’s Hook from the 1991 film. Ivan played the part of Smee as the long-suffering servant and delivered the role with the kind of wry humour that made him very amusing.
Next came Hook’s nemesis – not Pan but the Crocodile – complete with the ticking clock. This was well puppeteered by Jack. In an amusing scene, Tigerlily, played by Mia with a cool, girl-power edge, conversed with the Croc discussing their common goals.
The lost boys were introduced next. Their repartee and energy were captured well. With the arrival of Peter and Wendy came the inevitable debate about who would be their mother and father. Without knowing too much about J.M. Barrie, this is clearly a preoccupation of his. The discussion often returned to ideas about childhood and freedom versus the need for a guiding mother and father figure. Equally, he seems interested in the role of the adult: how to be the responsible parent, while pursuing your own goals, as a man and as a woman.
Peter Pan and Wendy was an ambitious junior production from Director Ms Natalie Ibbett and the Drama team, showcasing the abundance of acting talent coming through the school... a timeless story well told
Digby Don, Harrodian English Teacher
In exploring the conflict of good versus evil, the play looked at the grey areas as much as the black and white. The pirate crew did an equally good job of capturing the apparent confidence and collective fears of the mob. They realise that they are all dispensable to Hook if they cannot carry out his orders to kill the crocodile. Tinkerbell (played by Amandine) had a great presence. She combined wit and jealous insecurity, when trying to claim that Wendy got lost on the way to Neverland. A number of Lowther Primary pupils in the dress rehearsal audience said that they enjoyed her performance. Captain Hook continued in his role as cunning baddy, drawing a gasp from the audience when he managed to lure John to the dark side. The psychological manipulation of the young boy was believable and seemed very possible: ‘welcome aboard, son.’
By the end of the play, once evil had been vanquished, the discussion returned to the conflict between age and youth. Why be a man when you can stay as a boy? How to evade the grip of the parents and the adults. What would become of the Lost Boys?
Like the performance set in Narnia last year, this year’s Neverland set was impressive. Peter Pan and Wendy was an ambitious junior production from Director Ms Natalie Ibbett and the Drama team, showcasing the abundance of acting talent coming through the school. The choreography of the fight scene drew a gasp and it was impressive to see so many pupils orchestrated in a number of more complex scenes. This was a timeless story well-told.
