The young company DONOTALIGHT brings to the stage a compelling play by Flora Wilson Brown that speaks for the new generation.
A minimal set (Victoria Maytom) comprises some rubber plants positioned on random flight cases. A central shoddy brown sofa, set obliquely, doubles as the front seats of a car.
Alice (Hannah Khalique-Brown) enters the darkened space (Lighting Designer Ryan Day), her face illuminated by the screen of a mobile phone into which she is about to tell her story; the only way she can come to terms with putting her years of trauma into words.
Max (Ethan Moorhouse) and Hannah (Martha Watson Allpress) meet as old university mates, lift-sharing as they drive to Bristol for a mutual friend’s wedding. The bride is Hannah’s former flame, it transpires. Enlightened direction (Harry Tennison) has the couple move freely about the space, engaging in rough and tumble, falling into slow motion scenes, all the while the car journey continues.
These two scenarios occur together in the same space and yet lie a distance apart. Sometimes the conversations coincide and the same words are spoken. At other times there appears a parallel mood between them. At first the technique seems clumsy and I fear that I cannot follow the two stories simultaneously; I worry I am missing something crucial. But the initial clash is intended and it sorts itself out as things progress.
Martha Watson Allpress and Ethan Moorhouse both excel in the relaxed friendship between Hannah and Max. Their smiles, laughter, and repartee are natural and free flowing. If Max is just a bit too much boy-next-door to be a convincing world-leading rock musician, maybe even megastars have a day off from their on-stage personas. Hannah Khalique-Brown is outstanding as the exposed and vulnerable Alice in what is essentially an extended monologue. Her initial quirky mannerisms underlining Alice’s inherent nervousness develop into something else as she finds the courage to speak out, not just for herself but for others too. Some curious staging of a final scene as Alice talks of the future for the only time in the play is marred by her passive positioning, speaking upstage.
Flora Wilson Brown’s thoughtful and powerful script raises so many questions concerning behavioural responsibility and culpability, coercion, and self-doubt. If anyone should consider that the abuses brought to light through the #MeToo movement are only historical then Flora Wilson Brown’s direct and dynamic writing should redress those thoughts. It is only up to us to listen.
“Simon Scullion has designed a set that seems to be always on the verge of killing someone, yet manages not to”
Glorious slapstick, wonderful cheeky humour, and a completely mad ‘plot.’ Peter Pan Goes Wrong has everything you could possibly want from a hilarious evening at the theatre.
Once again I had my nine year old sidekick, Manu, with me to help with the review. He loved it, I loved it, clearly the whole audience loved it. Manu’s favourite bits were the most outrageous physical ‘mishaps’; the collapsing sets, the appearance on stage of the crew, trying to fix things with a chain saw and various other alarming tools. But the fun began even before the show did. Cast and crew moved through the audience, getting in the way, running wires, looking for lost equipment and chatting with people in their personas as amateur actors on their way to perform. Patrick Warner the narrator, who also plays the Cecco, the Italian pirate, made Manu a balloon dog and Ciaran Kellgren who plays Peter Pan came along, playing the star. ‘You know who I am,’ he informed Manu, and luckily he did, because he’d been reading the programme. ‘You’re my biggest fan’ crowed Kellgren and signed his programme. One very happy boy, even before the play officially began.
Another thing that Manu loved was the number of characters some of the cast played. Phoebe Ellabani executed some lightning changes right at the beginning, transforming from Mary Darling to Lisa the maid in seconds. Several times. Later she became both Tiger Lily and Tinkerbell. Peter Pan’s flying was incredibly skilful. He made it look shambolic, dangerous and very, very funny. I don’t want to give too much away, but when the ‘stage hands’ came on to wire up the Darling children for their flight to Neverland they didn’t exactly manage to do it right. You’ll have to go and see it if you want to know what happens! It’s hard to convey the sense of breathtaking chaos. Nothing goes right, and everything is perfectly judged.
Romayne Andrews, as John Darling wearing headphones that ‘fed him his lines,’ had some fabulous moments when he unknowingly tuned into the shipping forecast, or the ‘backstage chat,’ repeating everything verbatim. Tom Babbage’s Michael Darling/crocodile combo won the hearts of us all, when his secret passion was revealed, his charm and vulnerability turning him from a geeky kid to the audience favourite. Connor Crawford’s outrageous and exasperated Captain Hook was determined that the play was NOT a pantomime, but nothing was going to stop the audience taking up the traditional ‘oh yes it is! Oh no it isn’t!’ call.
Everyone in the cast deserves mention, as they were all superb. Katy Daghorn was a Wendy holding it together with Sarah Bernhardt aplomb, Oliver Senton bumbled and growled as Starkey, woofed his way across the stage as Nana the dog and was determined that he was the Co-Director, not merely the assistant. Georgia Bradley was a sweet Tootles, injured and stuttering but finally triumphant and Ethan Moorhouse’s Trevor the Stage Manager was the epitome of incompetent frustration, trying to fix everything as it collapsed around him. Although the collapse was probably his fault in the first place, his team of Assistant Stage Managers, Eboni Dixon, Christian James, Soroosh Lavasani and Ava Pickett ‘helped’ with startling uselessness.
Just when it seems impossible for things to fall apart even more spectacularly the finale happens. And it seems to happen to the cast, rather than be created by them. The revolving stage revolves, everything seems on the edge of total implosion and somehow the characters arrive at something approaching the expected end.
Simon Scullion has designed a set that seems to be always on the verge of killing someone, yet manages not to. The lighting and sound design add beautifully to the explosions and mishaps. And it’s all shaped into a tight, crazy farce by Adam Meggido, who expects a lot from his cast and absolutely gets it.
The whole thing is a superb romp that anyone from nine to ninety will love, acted and directed with whip smart skill. Manu and I both say ‘go and see it!’ You won’t regret it, although your ribs may be sore from laughing.
Reviewed by Katre
Photography by Alastair Muir
Peter Pan Goes Wrong
Theatre Royal Brighton until 24th November then UK tour continues
Peter Pan Goes Wrong
