By Kim Jones
I first came across Mischief Theatre on New Year’s Day 2016 when there was a televised version of this very play, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, aired in the afternoon. We were staying with family and pretty much everyone in the living room was snoozing post-lunch apart from me and my younger son. So we had to choke on our laughter and stifle our screeches, for fear of waking everyone up as we watched the sportingly silly action unfold!
Not so last night at the stage show at Wales Millennium Centre. Thankfully we could let rip and freely laugh out loud along with the rest of the audience who were all in stitches too. Our cheeks ached as we giggled and shrieked non-stop as the never-relenting hilarity went on and on and on….
To all intents and purposes, Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a show put on by the hapless amateurs at Cornley Drama Society. They try, bless them – but everything that could go wrong does. And it’s silly, ridiculous and unbelievable, of course – but also downright brilliant and ingenious.
Get to your seats early as the show starts before the audience doors close as ‘backstage hands’ dash around the stalls, searching for missing hammers and asking the audience in the stalls to hold aloft electrical wires to help plug in the ‘iffy’ stage lighting. All setting the scene for the silliness and mayhem to ensue.
Expect snortingly-silly slapstick as the set malfunctions around the desperate amateur actors. There’s everything from exploding lighting to slip-ups and skids on set, collapsing scenery to corpsing on stage, missing props to costume mishaps, awkward silences to secret (embarrassing) recordings being played out loud and a ‘flying’ Peter Pan careering headlong into all sorts of dangers and wrecking the set in the process. There are broken limbs, concussion and near-death experiences, but the show must go on!
A laugh a minute (literally), we were struck by what talented actors absolutely everyone on stage was (it’s really not easy to play a poor actor unless you’re a great one yourself!).
Highlights include the comical anger of Chris (Jack Michael Stacey) as Mr Darling and Captain Hook who berates the audience for treating his production as if it is a pantomime. And hapless Max (Theo Toksvig-Stewart) who hasn’t learned his lines so has to wear a headset – though he not only delivers his lines (badly) but also the instructions he’s meant keep to keep to himself.
The set itself is also a star of the show. From brilliant bunkbeds to a revolving stage that just won’t stop, it really is a work of genius. As is the whole show.
I can’t recommend this play enough – it’s one for the whole family and will not only leave you laughing all the way home, but also marvelling at how clever it all was to pull off so very well (or should I say so very, very badly). Go give your chuckle muscles a full-on workout!
Peter Pan Goes Wrong is on at Wales Millennium Centre until 27 Jan – book here
You can find more information on the Peter Pan Goes Wrong UK tour here
Photos by Pamela Raith Photography