Sleeping Trees are known for their Christmas fairytale mashups, loose-fitting family shows that splice Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and the like. This year, they’re doing something similar for adult audiences. Peter Pan’s Labyrinth is what happens when JM Barrie meets the David Bowie fantasy movie, with a dash of Guillermo del Toro thrown in. The splicing doesn’t end there, with Sleeping Trees’ usual trio of creator-performers being joined by drag queen Dan Wye, and one half of the Pajama Men, Shenoah Allen, directing.
Which might imply something different from the company’s usual fare. But really, this is more of the cheerfully slapdash same, with added rude words. It aspires to be nothing more, and nothing less, than a comic runaround, all crap props, cut corners and backchat, poking affectionate fun at the source material. The story, in which you’re expected to make no emotional investment whatsoever, concerns James Dunnell-Smith’s middle-aged Peter Pan, desperate to get back to Neverland to prevent Tinkerbell’s wedding to Captain Hook. To achieve this, he must first navigate the labyrinth of our master of ceremonies, the Goblin King – basically, Bowie in shock wig and glam stylings.
Wye has fun and feline charisma in the role, and a fine set of pipes. Like the whole show, though, it’s performed from behind a veil of irony, a knowingness about the gimcrack nature of the endeavour that insulates us from any real feeling or jeopardy. Which is fine when the comedy’s at full tilt, which it often is here. Wye’s cameo as Peter’s Brummie shadow is appealingly daft, Life on Mars is repurposed to hymn the plight of a toilet with thwarted dreams of stardom, and another Bowie number is heralded with a glorious/groansome pun on a certain Iberian pastry.
Just as frequently, though, the puns don’t fly, the gags are oversold, and opportunities for comedy go a-begging – like the squandering of the iconic Pan’s Labyrinth “hands-for-eyes guy” on a duff grape-throwing set piece with the audience. Had the Goblin King offered me a wish, I’d have asked for a show that took more risks, in pursuit not only of knockabout laughs, but maybe even some of the magic of the originals.
