Peter Pan Goes Wrong at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff – review

Thanks to Wales Millennium Centre for providing us with tickets to review Peter Pan Goes Wrong

The award-winning Mischief Theatre bring Peter Pan Goes Wrong back to Cardiff – and it’s as brilliantly outrageous as ever.  This family-friendly show is just what you need to lift your spirits and have a good old belly laugh this cold and wet January.

The antics of the Cornely Polytechnic Drama Society had last night’s audience laughing out loud for more than two hours as the West End hit opened at Wales Millennium Centre for a week-long run. It’s worth getting there early – when my nine year old youngest child and I arrived in the auditorium at 7.15pm the ‘backstage crew’ were searching for missing tools and passing electric cables through the audience. It certainly set the scene for the rest of the show in which, as its name suggests, nothing goes to script for the hapless drama society, as they stage JM Barrie’s classic.

I won’t give too much away – see it for yourself if you can – but scenery falls apart, the rotating set gets stuck on a spin cycle, actors are injured, electrocuted, and knocked unconscious. One character doesn’t know his lines and repeats everything said to him via his headset, inadvertently revealing juicy backstage secrets. Nana the dog gets trapped in a door, and there are some rather exposing costume mishaps. The special effects recordings feature yet more character bombshells, and details of the actors’ personal lives play out behind (and even on) the stage.

And despite the instance of Cornley’s director Chris, who plays Captain Hook and Mr Darling (played superbly by Jack Michael Stacey) that this is a play and not a panto, his fellow cast members and audience are only keen to prove otherwise, with plenty of ‘he’s behind you’ and ‘oh no it isn’t’ banter.

One of the most engaging shows you could watch, it’s all so ludicrously entertaining and brilliant fun as the performers strive to deliver their production.

I’ve been lucky enough to see Mischief’s original play The Goes Wrong Show and Peter Pan Goes Wrong previously (not to mention the TV series The Goes Wrong Show – catch it on BBC iPlayer, it’s brilliantly funny). What always truly amazes me is how intricately everything is planned so that all the stage disasters happen seamlessly. The coordination is incredible, and you can only imagine the rehearsal process for the production and the technical wizardry to make everything correctly ‘go wrong’ without anything actually going wrong. It’s also quite something that the cast play it so straight – as disaster ensues around them, there’s not a smile out of a place or an off-script giggle. The show must go on for these intrepid Cornley performers.

Last night’s audience had a brilliant time; the laughter and atmosphere in the Donald Gordon Theatre was so uplifting, the standing ovation at the end testament to a wonderfully creative play and a thoroughly entertaining evening. My cheeks ached, my belly ached, my nine year old could barely breathe at one point he was laughing so much. If you want something to lift the spirits and entertain the family, we highly recommend.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong is at Wales Millennium Centre until Saturday 27 January, with performances at 7.30pm daily and 2.30pm on Thursday and Saturday. Tickets, priced from £16.50, are still available. Visit the website here for more information.

Age guidance: 8+, no admission to under 2s. Running time: approximately 2.5 hours.

Also coming up at Wales Millennium Centre, Jesus Christ Superstar (29 January-3 February), Bluey’s Big Play(13-17 March, and Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands (19-23 March) and See the Wales Millennium Centre website for full details.