Proving that a good panto requires more than a fat budget and the erstwhile star of ‘Baywatch Nights’, the 2010 New Wimbledon Theatre Christmas show is lavish but rather anaemic.
Ian Talbot’s production stumbles into a very obvious pitfall, in that it fails to really do anything about the fact that JM Barrie’s 1904 children’s classic ‘Peter Pan’ isn’t actually a pantomime. Eric Potts’ adaptation seesaws unevenly between straight scenes cleaving faithfully to Barrie, and sequences of unbridled silliness in which David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff and ‘Pineapple Studios’s Louie Spence feature as members of the world’s least intimidating crew of pirates.
Explaining the ongoing appeal of Hasselhoff is not a simple task, but it’s not down to his acting, and while the big lug is diverting, he hardly burns the stage up: even between them, him and Spence don’t amount to one decent dame.
Children will probably enjoy the expensive magical effects and Terry Parsons’ gorgeous Neverland sets, but Potts’s hackneyed script offers little for adults beyond a couple of limp ‘Knightrider’ gags and Spence’s by-numbers campery.