THE author J. M. Barrie said of his play Peter Pan that “all the characters, whether grown-up or babies, must wear a child’s outlook on life as their only adornment”. This Raymond Gubbay-produced show, directed by Steven Dexter, honours that instruction. The patriarchal Mr Darling is as childish as his offspring and envies Nana, the family sheepdog, because she gets more cuddles than he does. Even Captain Hook and the pirates cry for their mummies. It’s a weird world, where strange and magical things can occur without explanation.

From the moment the ruched blue curtain rises on the Darlings’ Edwardian nursery, it’s clear that we are never intended to forget that this is theatre. More curtains, this time cardboard cutouts, hang above the stage and later become the waves of the lagoon in which the Neverland mermaids frolic.

At the rear, a starry night twinkles beyond a huge open window, through which Jack Blumenau’s sprightly, spiky-haired Peter Pan makes his airborne entrance.

The production’s air of unreality is well-suited to this tale of make-believe, but Francis O’Connor’s sets look decidedly cheap. The script has some slow, wordy interludes that make children fidget, and John Rigby’s synthesizer music is horribly tinny.

The cast manage to sprinkle a little sparkly fairy dust. Blumenau satisfyingly brings out capering Peter’s nasty streak, and Katie Foster-Barnes’s sweet Wendy captures the sense of a girl on the cusp of womanhood. The overgrown Lost Boys — a bunch of baby-talking adults — are irritating, unlike the aptly named Darling boys, who are enchantingly played by real children (Jack Dedman and Sam Mannox). But the pirates are jolly, and as Captain Hook, Anthony Head (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is highly entertaining. In leather and velvet with long dark locks, there’s a touch of Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen to this dandified tyrant, whose missing hand is replaced by a terrifying implement that is less hook than small scythe.

Head is great fun, too, as grumpy Mr Darling, complaining to his wife while testily brushing Nana’s hairs from his dinner jacket: “I sometimes think that it’s a mistake to have a dog as a nurse.”

It’s a marvellous understatement: as that maligned hound, Mark Oxtoby is energetic and expressive, but I couldn’t help thinking that a canine nanny was the stuff of nightmares.

Despite some winning moments, though, this is a stodgy show that never conjures enough wonderment and exhilaration. It might charm and amuse intermittently, but it’s unlikely to leave anyone believing in fairies.

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