Wow factor missing as limp show fails to fly

PETER PAN — THE MUSICAL ADVENTURE

Lowry, Salford

I JUST don’t get it. For most of its 10 years, Pele Productions has been providing panto and Christmas entertainment to the Lowry, and still hasn’t found a formula that works.

They last did “Peter Pan” here in 2003, when Justin Moorhouse and Paul Nicholas worked hard through a rough and ready, dance-burdened exercise that managed to weave a way through pantomime and musical and on balance offered a good night out.

Rather than do that again — but better — this time the company goes for the Broadway musical version of the story, fitfully revived since it was first produced 55 years ago.

And on current evidence, they haven’t made a very good job of it.

Well that’s not entirely true: the show has great sets; substantial, bright and colourful.

But cut to two hours (but too much, so what’s left is slow and occasionally makes little sense), the evening is filled with TV faces not terribly experienced in panto or musicals and worse, without much singing ability between them.

So Corrie’s former villain, Brian Capron, tries hard to be mean, but not too mean, as Hook and simply isn’t big or bad enough; our own John Henshaw is horribly under-used as Smee (he gets perhaps three funny lines all evening); there is a pretty but entirely misplaced trapeze act from the Indians (and this isn’t a panto with a speciality act, remember), and EastEnders’ Peter Beale — young actor Thomas Law — as Peter Pan, who looks well enough but can’t sing and plays the petulant boy without conviction.

Tara Wells, as Wendy, can sing but doesn’t sing in character: this sweet little middle-class Edwardian girl sounds like a club singer.

Bringing it all together, director David Fleeshman hasn’t given the evening nearly enough energy and wow-factor, though granted, the musical suffers from completely unmemorable songs and a lame book, which makes it hard.

Since this isn’t a panto, little attempt is made at audience interaction, which is why many of the kids in the audience seemed to be talking to their parents quite a lot of the time.

The whole thing seems rather limp and completely uninvolving, with not a lot of imagination applied. The cast members simply don’t appear to be enjoying themselves very much, and if they aren’t, how can we?