National Theatre Live in HD: "Peter Pan"
An inventive, playful production of JM Barrie’s classic play about the boy who never grows up.
With truly inspired casting—including a chilling Anna Francolini as Mrs. Darling/Captain Hook—this inventive, playful production celebrates the hero’s devotion to fun, but remains true to the melancholy spirit of JM Barrie’s play about the boy who never grows up. 3h
“The key to Cookson’s approach is an inventive playfulness and a visible, nothing-up-your-sleeve magic. Even the flying is achieved through palpable ‘fairy strings’ and a trio of professional counterweighters on stage-side ladders. When the Darling family fly off with Peter, black-and-white cards evoke the London rooftops, coloured globes become planets and rippling ribbons suggest the sea. Neverland is an adventure playground where the lost boys make use of found objects so that tin cans turn into telephones and binoculars, while bicycle pumps are microphones. But Cookson and designer Michael Vale follow Peter Brook’s precept that an audience needs a jolt four-fifths of the way through and deploy the Olivier drum-revolve to bring on a pirate ship that looks like a massive, rusting Sherman tank.”
The Guardian
