BROADWAY REVIEW: ‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’ is a total blast; plus it … – New York Daily News

Even without Neil Patrick Harris the star turn massively juicing up ticket sales for a few weeks Peter Pan Goes Wrong will be a great night out for a family audience. The politically incorrect show is a total blast and one of the very few Broadway attractions where kids are encouraged to clap, boo and talk back to the annoying actors.

One lucky pint-size theatergoer from the Bronx sitting near me last Sunday afternoon even got the chance to do a magic trick with NPH: he was so demonstrably thrilled, the smiles on his parents face illuminated half his row.

(L-R) Henry Shields (Chris), Ellie Morris (Lucy), Henry Lewis (Robert), Charlie Russell (Sandra), Jonathan Sayer (Dennis), Neil Patrick Harris (Francis), and Matthew Cavendish (Max). (Jeremy Daniel)

But this isnt a kids show, per se. Its a good date night choice, too, given its capacity to talk to both sides of the great political divide, to make you forget the troubles of the week and to actually enjoy the rapidly vanishing art of physical comedy: pratfalls, head slaps, collapsing props, the whole kit and caboodle of silly pleasures.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong is far better than the last Broadway show, The Play That Goes Wrong, from the British troupe that calls themselves the Mischief Theatre company. This writing (and performing crew) made up of Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields has hit upon a great gimmick: set up a show-within-a-show situation where a theatrical endeavor by a fictional college amateur dramatic society is doing a production in all seriousness, only for everything to go wrong.

That means doors stick, actors get stuck in scenery, sound cues go awry, embarrassing stuff is heard over headsets and, in totem, audiences get to watch the gentle art of perseverance through trying circumstances, a staple of farce since Roman times.

Front: (L-R) Harry Kershaw (Francis), Chris Leask (Trevor), Henry Shields (Chris), Nancy Zamit (Annie), and Greg Tannahill (Jonathan) Back: (L-R) Charlie Russell (Sandra) and Henry Lewis (Robert). (Jeremy Daniel)

But whereas the overly long The Play That Goes Wrong was based on just a generic kind of play, Peter Pan Goes Wrong has real source material, helpfully in the public domain, that the audience already knows. That preawareness gives the show more comedic structure than was the case last time around. The troupe gets to spoof all those bad prior productions of Peter Pan, as previously experienced, if only in grade school, by almost everyone in the building. And it becomes possible to lampoon stuff associated with British pantos, many of which had vaudeville roots.

But theres something else at play: Peter Pan Goes Wrong also is big enough visually to actually feel like a Broadway show with the attendant ticket prices, which was not true last time. You get a star making a cameo (Harris, presumably soon to be followed by suitable storytelling replacements), a revolving stage (that goes wrong), musical numbers (Cathy Rigby need not worry), even black-light puppets (the hooded puppeteers crash into one another with painful results). Admirably, the show has retained a palpable handmade artifice, but its also a genuine physical spectacle, as designed by Simon Scullion and with not a digital enhancement in sight.

Kids love to be told they are not safe, not least because so much of the sentimental, moralistic pap thrown their way insists otherwise. When someone is not talking down to them but screaming at them in a rage, they can almost faint from their sheer delight of getting to have a fresh conversation. This embrace of the danger of life is the secret sauce of Harry Potter, in all of its brand extensions, and the Mischief crew clearly has learned that the more their faces go red in annoyance at the catcalls of their younger fans, the more they are enjoyed. And, of course, this happily also applies to adults.

(L-R) Nancy Zamit (Annie), Matthew Cavendish (Max), Jonathan Sayer (Dennis), Charlie Russell (Sandra), Bianca Horn (Gill), and Ellie Morris (Lucy). (Jeremy Daniel)

The center hook of the show, which uses much the same cast as did The Play That Goes Wrong, is Henry Shields, playing the shows director and leading actor. Anyone familiar with the classic sitcom Fawlty Towers cant miss the homage to John Cleeses Basil Fawlty, but whatever Shields might lack in originality, he makes up for in the sheer force of his fake pomposity.

In essence, he treats his audience much like the obsequious Fawlty treated the guests in his hotel: important people not to be told the truth in any circumstances, whatever disasters are happening behind the scenes. Its a classic farcical setup, and it works deliciously here.

Add in Henry Lewis as a classic sidekick playing the nursery dog, among others; Nancy Zamit as a less-than-graceful Tinker Bell; Chris Leask as the backstage malcontent, and Jonathan Sayer as a hapless cast member who needs to have his lines fed to him through radio-frequency headphones and, well, you have all the comic types.

But these shows also need skilled normative characters to root the audience, though, and, aptly enough, that Connie Booth-like role is played by Bianca Horn, who essays both Wendy and, of course, the actress playing Wendy.

Farce is rarely taken seriously on Broadway, of course, but this one deserves to be. Its very much in One Man, Two Guvnors, a madcap couple of hours that bespeaks of old-school pleasures and fun for all.

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BROADWAY REVIEW: 'Peter Pan Goes Wrong' is a total blast; plus it ... - New York Daily News