THEATRE REVIEW: "Peter Pan Goes Wrong"... In all the right ways
Peter Pan Goes Wrong, the Olivier Award-nominated comedy produced by Mischief Theatre, is a play in which you have no idea what is going to happen next. This 2-hour long chaotic production presents disaster after disaster, with each new technical difficulty, injury and personal dispute executed with perfect comedic timing.
Being a play within a play, we enter the theatre to stage hands hurrying around and putting together last minute cables, even going to the length of getting the audience to pass down a giant extension cord from the front row all the way down to the end, and back again. Cast are rushing to memorise their lines, the crew are frantically looking for a lost hammer, and the lights on stage are flickering, clearly not in a good state for the soon-to-begin show. The audience interaction is plentiful and you may be asked to do more than just have a quick chat - at one point, an entire row was asked to get up to make way for someone hurrying to get from one side to the other. The cast are unashamedly unprepared and don’t hesitate to make the audience well and truly aware.
When the play finally begins, the audience is greeted with various mishaps, one after another. From characters getting stuck in doors, right through to losing their clothes, the laughs produced by these disasters were endless. There are actually very few jokes in the show - the humour of this play relies on the audience laughing at the absurdity of the many mistakes that happen. And it’s no doubt that this strategy certainly worked to produce almost constant laughter throughout the entire play.
Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a laugh out loud show - there is very little storyline and more for those who are after a night of pure comedy. The cast expertly portray an amateur theatre company with very bad luck, making it incredibly easy to laugh until you can’t breathe. Don’t miss out - get your tickets today.
