Peter Pan's Great Adventure

Fun lyrics and great musical timing manage to bring Neverland to life with a small cast and even smaller set. Providence Entertainment’s Peter Pan’s Great Adventure is an enjoyable and earnest musical adaptation of JM Barrie’s classic story of the boy who never grew up.

A simple and enjoyable production for families looking for a short and sweet morning show.

With a cast of five talented performers carrying the weight of both main characters and extras, the story plays out remarkably well considering the set consists of tables, stools and sheets. Imagination is called for with the actors playing several parts (sometimes all at once) though this is in the spirit of the show. The cast used their lack of props and actors for some fun and humorous moments, which made up for otherwise quite simple dialogue and a fairly orthodox script. The production relied on the original story to carry it along, which worked fine though was a little uncreative. The show did a good job of abridging the story while still keeping the themes of adventure and dreams alight. Both Peter Pan and Wendy gave great musical performances, and really carried the production’s music. The entire cast did a good job of switching between different characters, and interacted with the audience with confidence and charm.

Though the dialogue was a little laboured with the performers sometimes seeming a little nervous, the music and lyrics were well-written and credit should be given to the actors for near-perfect timing with the pre-recorded music. The only issue was that the acoustics in the room weren’t great in mixing the music with the singing. As the actors weren’t mic’ed, this meant it was sometimes difficult hearing what was being said. Choreography was simple and could have been done better, especially as John was noticeably a pretty good dancer, but as the music itself was good this was no big problem. Sound design was surprisingly well-directed, as was the small Tinker Bell light.

A simple and enjoyable production for families looking for a short and sweet morning show. Young children will be pulled into the magic of the story and parents will appreciate the show’s charm and joyful enthusiasm.