Theatre review: Peter Pan, Glasgow

EVEN before the show starts the set for this stadium version of Peter Pan – a series of giant story-books strewn across the stage – makes a strong impression.
Peter Pan at the Glasgow Hydro. Picture: Robert PerryPeter Pan at the Glasgow Hydro. Picture: Robert Perry
Peter Pan at the Glasgow Hydro. Picture: Robert Perry

Peter Pan

SSE Hydro, Glasgow

* * *

Once the show is under way, the ever-changing series of dream-landscapes and images projected over its surfaces has the 10,000-strong crowd gasping and applauding, as the show’s design-team unfolds an unsettling aesthetic that lies somewhere between Mary Poppins, Salvador Dali, and the grungier end of science-fantasy-fiction.

With a cast of more than 40, including 27 dancers and acrobats, this Music Hall show – directed by Luc Petit – is nothing if not big; and sometimes it seems like such a massive collision of different styles and aspirations that it threatens to lose the plot altogether. It’s a live show driven almost entirely by its pre-filmed visual images and its pre-recorded orchestral score of recent pop standards; and their combined force often completely overwhelms both the detail of Barrie’s story, and the tiny live performers, dwarfed by their own huge live images projected onto the set.

Hide Ad

As the story reaches its climax, though, it seems to focus more tightly on the mood and meaning of Barrie’s story, allowing the most forceful and impressive actors to build some kind of connection with the audience. And although Tinkerbell’s ill-conceived voice-over narrative is enough to make any connoisseur of stagecraft weep, this is still a memorably weird and spectacular show, with a cast whose terrific collective presence at the final curtain-call shows how much more they could have done, if this show had been more like a piece of theatre, and less like some weird movie sound-stage, in the land that taste forgot.

Related topics: