Wendy & Peter Pan ★★★★★

One hundred and twenty-three years after the iconic character first appeared in print, as soon as the curtain rises on the Darling nursery, one thing is immediately clear about The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production, Wendy & Peter Pan: this is not your parents’ or grandparents’ Peter Pan. This retelling of the JM Barrie classic, adapted by Ella Hickson and directed by Jonathan Munby, assumes a more modern sensibility, digging into the subtext to find the darker, more emotionally resonant threads of the story.

Rather than a boys-own adventure, this reframes the work, giving Wendy her rightful lead, and posing the underlying question: what happens when childhood ends and memory begins? She embarks on a quest to unlock her parents’ forgotten happiness – consumed with grief over their own ‘lost boy’, their child Tom (Alexander Molony), who died after suddenly contracting an illness. When Peter Pan and his entourage of shadows appear in the Darlings’ nursery and spirit Wendy and her brothers John and Michael (ably played by Fred Woodley Evans and Kwaku Mills) away to Neverland, the moment the children think their happy thoughts and begin to fly is enchanting. Lucy Hind‘s choreography is dynamic and mesmerising, providing that theatrical fairy dust to let the show take wing. These flying sequences, aided by some superlative rigging wizardry, achieve that rare feat of physical storytelling: they actually make you believe in flight.

Plunged into a whirlwind adventure of magic and danger, Hannah Saxby, as Wendy, our plucky protagonist, plays the part with vim and vigour. Struggling to convince the Lost Boys, her brothers and Peter Pan of the importance of her mission to find Tom, she battles against their desire to play and have fun at every opportunity. The result is no clichéd male versus female split. Tink, played by Charlotte Mills with a feisty attitude and humour, is initially no female ally to Wendy.

There is no JM Barrie myth without its villain, and Toby Stephens is magnificent as Hook, bringing the perfect amount of swashbuckling villainy and charisma to the part. Daniel Krikler is equally impressive as Pan; the sword fights between him and Hook are charged with energy and animation. The pair’s eternal battle talks of the struggle between the freedom of youth, embodied by The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, and the constraints and complexity of ageing, manifested in the resentful pirate captain.

Reimagining Neverland as the landscape of grief and memory, Colin Richmond’s ever-changing design conjures a dreamscape of shifting skies, shadowed forests and floating ships. It’s a feast for the eyes and one which treads the fine line between magical and something potentially more threatening. Putting Wendy’s lost brother Tom at the heart of the story, Hickson’s script refashions the journey to Neverland not as an escape from the real world but instead offers a way through it.

The underlying feminist themes and the redress of the gender imbalance of the original bring a fresh perspective whilst not taking away anything from Barrie’s timeless story.

Jonathan Munby’s deft direction ensures that the production gallops along at a pace which enthrals and enraptures, with an infectious humour the glue that holds the elements together. Younger audience members will be enthralled by the spectacle and the colour of this production. By the end, adults might find themselves shedding a silent tear. Wendy & Peter Pan not only showcases the power of fairies, but also highlights the wonder of theatre.