Going down the Pan

I've never personally been over-convinced by the tale of Peter Pan as recounted on stage. It all starts and ends well enough in the Darlings' nursery, but gets bogged down in the middle with a lot of repetitive business in Neverland involving alarm clocks and crocodiles.

Maybe, however, I felt that way because I had never seen the full pantomime treatment with the eternally youthful Bonnie Langford in the title role.

Sadly, my views remain unchanged after sitting through two of the more charmless hours of Christmas programming London has to offer. Langford does boast, as several admiring males noted, "great legs", and a thigh-slappingly hearty style of festive season acting to match. But she certainly needs it to see her through here, as she and Robert Powell's Mr Darling/Hook don't have to
do much to stand out from the sea of mediocrity that engulfs them.

This production comes from the stable of the panto-producing behemoth Qdos, which this year is presenting 27 shows across the UK, featuring such greats of stage and screen as Bobby Davro and Frank Bruno. Understandably, for face-saving reasons, no one appears to be credited with the script for this offering, which manages to remove every last vestige of poignancy from the story of the boy who never grew up.

The first half of Alan Cohen's production begins with a My Fair Lady-like street scene full of "aufentic" Londoners and cute kids with rictus grins, and passes in a blur of mediocrity. The second fares better, thanks to two elements not necessarily familiar to lovers of JM Barrie's original: a vaulting display from the Acromaniacs gymnastics squad, and an enormous sponge-throwing session. Theatrical purists would be well advised to steer clear.

It's about time that producers bucked their ideas up and stopped taking punters' Christmas pounds in exchange for theatrical old rope like this. One only needs to look at the excellent work currently on offer at the Lyric Hammersmith and Greenwich, to name but two, to see that bums sit far more happily on December seats when there's quality on the stage in front of them.

Until 19 January. Box office: 020 8940 0088.

Peter Pan