Peter Pan Goes Wrong – Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

Writers: Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields

Director: Adam Megiddo

If you’ve seen Mischief Theatre before then you know what to expect and you will not be disappointed. If this is your first experience of the company then you can expect an absurd, slapstick farce that will build into utter chaos and just as you think the pandemonium has peaked it will build some more.

Everything the audience needs to know is quickly set up in a brief exposition as the directors of the show set the scene of both the play and the internecine struggle going on behind the scenes. In effect, we are given the rules of the game, and it is very much a game. There is the forgetful actor who will be fed his lines through a headset. Another is only there because his family is an important benefactor to the amateur theatre company presenting the show. The co-director of course has cast his niece who has chronic stage fright and so on. Once we have the rules, we are off on a dizzying ride through a version of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. The fictitious stage crew are as much a part of the show as the cast. Indeed, one ends up concussed, unconscious hanging upside down in a most undignified state.

We are being told two stories: the familiar tale of Peter Pan is set alongside the story of the unhealthy emotional tensions of the company performing the play. This leads to layers of delicious confusion. For example, Jack Michael Stacey plays Chris Bean, a pompous director close to the end of his tether. He is in turn playing the contained and proper Mr. Darling but also the arrogant overly confident Captain Hook. Shields gives a particularly good account of himself in an improvised sequence with the audience, which may or may not have been driven by plants in the auditorium. However, this also revealed a minor weakness because Stacey is not only playing the multiple characters the script demands but he is also replicating the clown persona of Henry Shields who first created the characters in the original Mischief Theatre production. Stacey’s improvising persona comes from his own inner clown and not from that of Shields and just for a moment we are watching a character with different energies as his comedic style diverges from that of Shields.

Several original cast members’ personas are recognisable in this company’s actors which are indeed very good replications. Matthew Howell perfectly captures the bluster and misplaced arrogance of Henry Lewis. He has a glorious sequence where he plays Pan’s shadow in the style of a clumsy fusion of contemporary dancer and Lycra-clad mime.

Jake Burgum plays Trevor the previously mentioned concussed, hanging, stage manager. Burgum demonstrates superb slapstick timing and excellent frustration when thrown into the play with a script which he desperately tries to read, stage directions and all, while hanging upside down above the stage. He is both the fictional show’s saviour and harbinger of doom.

Rosemarie Akwafo’s timid character Lucy has an interesting journey through the play. From being initially paralysed with stage fright she ends up genuinely commanding the stage at the end of the show. After indescribable mayhem has reigned, she holds a calm and measured atmosphere in her control and keeps us thoroughly engaged: quite an achievement.

Among the skilled ensemble, Jean Luke Worrell as the Narrator and pirate is a particular comic delight. Such an expressive face and hands, he is entirely comfortable with letting the comic moment hang as he is constantly brutalised by his own narrator’s chair. Perhaps he has the advantage of accessing his personal inner clown.

The revolving set is one of the stars of the show. As with the chair, the set has a malevolent life of its own. Although one or two of the many, many slapstick moments are a little lacking earlier on, the final choreography during the zenith of pandemonium on the out-of-control revolve is an absolute delight and almost too much to take in.

If you like slapstick this show cannot possibly disappoint. When you think there cannot possibly be anything left to give, they unleash yet more hilarity. Mischief Theatre is the perfect antidote to these challenging times.

Runs until 8 October 2023 and on tour