Peter Pan wouldn’t grow up. Mary Rose, his fusty, far more frightening sibling, also a creation of writer JM Barrie, can’t. Her tale is told in flashback: an Australian sailor ambles into a deserted house, and ghosts of Mary Rose’s memories ooze out of the furniture and stage scenes from her life. She went missing, aged nine, on a family holiday, for 20 unaccountable days, remembering nothing of her experience. But even as an adult, tethered to a husband and baby, Mary Rose’s Never Never Land constantly threatens to reclaim her.
Director Matthew Parker delivers a scrupulously detailed, gripping, genuinely goose-bump inducing vision of this high Victorian ghost story. A fabulously eerie ensemble embody a troop of unquiet spirits, supplying physical punctuation to the slightly creaky central dialogue.
Occasionally Barrie’s wild shift in registers, from stiff-backed comedy to high horror, grates, Mary Rose’s fey, ‘childish’ nature seems a malodorous male fantasy, and the protracted final scene proves a ghostly visitation too far. But Parker’s sterling cast, and his sure, hugely inventive dramatic touch generate an impressive, lingering impression of real loss and longing.