Finding Neverland At Drayton Entertainment
Finding Neverland, the undistinguished musical tale of the creation of J. M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” has followed a long and winding road which has brought it to the Hamilton Family Theatre in Cambridge, Ontario.
When, after several iterations, it arrived on Broadway, Neverland was pooh-poohed by the snooty New York Times and received not a single Tony nomination.
It’s easy to see why. Finding Neverland is an adaptation of a film of the same name starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, which was in turn an adaptation of a play. With a book by James Graham and music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, the resulting product, which seems to have been endlessly retooled, is resolutely pedestrian. Yet despite its lackluster reception on the Great White Way it ran for a more than respectable 565 performances. Again, it’s easy to see why
It tells the somewhat fictionalized, but basically accurate, story of how the Scottish playwright and novelist J. M. Barrie came to write “Peter Pan,” his greatest success. It features four adorable young boys who Barrie met and befriended in Kensington Park and who inspired the play. There is an intensely romantic but doomed romance. There is a backstage show biz setting yielding ample opportunity for high jinks.
And of course there is the underlying story of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. Only the very youngest audience members will arrive with no prior knowledge of a tale that has been told again and again on a daily basis ever since it first burst forth on the London stage in 1904. What’s not to like?
Well, the curmudgeon in me is forced to admit that there actually are a few things not to like. Graham’s paint-by-numbers book is given to all manner of cliché. The humour, such as it is, is given to wink-wink devices like having a member of the theatrical company in the play within the play bellow “Musical comedy is the lowest form of theatre!”
Then there is dialog like this:
“Do you believe in fairies?”
“My good man, I work in the theatre. I see them every day.”
(Are we still allowed to say things like that?)
There are some genuine laughs, but they are scarce.
The music is pop-rocky schmaltz for the most part with banal lyrics to match. Occasionally a number like “All That Matters” seems to rise above the general level of mediocrity until you realize it’s the singer who has made you sit up straight and take notice.
That brings me to the cast – the major attraction in this iteration of Finding Neverland – and here I toss my inner curmudgeon aside.
Robert Markus as Barrie is the consummate leading man with one of he finest voices on the Canadian musical stage. He holds the audience rapt. As Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the mother of those adorably rambunctious lads, Ellen Denny is positively radiant, with a voice that can hold its own in Markus’ presence.
The script, staging, and pheromone-rich chemistry between these two was so blatant in signalling their impending romance that I half expected them to fall into each other’s arms at any moment. I had to wait until the second act after Barrie’s marriage to actress Mary Ansell (Jennifer Harding) had ended in divorce. (Her fault. Adultery.)
As depicted in Finding Neverland the relationship between Barrie and Sylvia is hokey in the extreme, but Denny and Markus pull it off beautifully.
Thom Allison scores in the dual role of impresario Charles Frohman and Captain Hook. One of the more coy conceits of the show is that the Hook character represents a hidden side of the rather shy Barrie.
A few other veteran performers stand out in other roles – Blythe Wilson as Sylvia’s mother, Mrs. du Maurier, and the great farceur Eddie Glen as one of Frohman’s theatre company. The diminutive Christine Watson makes a perfectly delightful Peter Pan.
Director/choreographer David Connolly has found plenty for his cast of 25 (including one adorable English sheepdog) to do over the course of some 20 musical numbers. He has some excellent help from Brandon Kleiman (sets), Kevin Fraser (lights), Jenine Kroeplin (costumes), and Alan McMillan (sound design).
Kleiman has cleverly framed the action on the stage of an Edwardian-era theatre as seen from far upstage looking out to the proscenium. And for once, under McMillan’s supervision, I found the by now mandatory amplification not overbearing.
There’s no Flying by Foy in this Neverland. When cast members have to fly they are picked up by others, a low-tech device that interestingly enough was used in much glossier Broadway original. It works just fine.
Some of the numbers are quite good, the hallucinatory “Circus of Your Mind” especially so. On the other hand, “Play,” in which Frohman exhorts his rebellious company to remember their childhoods to bring “Peter Pan” the play to life, flops. It devolves into a tedious round of children’s rhymes that seemed to go on forever. In Connolly’s defense, that was what Barlow and Kennedy saddled him with.
Part of the fun of Finding Neverland – and a large factor in its continuing popularity I would argue – is the chance it gives the audience to relive memories of the Pan story. Surely only the youngest audience members arrive with no prior knowledge of what has become in a century and a quarter one of the most beloved stories ever told. “Peter Pan” the play is not recreated, but we see snatches of it that allow us the thrill of recognition and afford an opportunity to congratulate ourselves on how literate we are.
And, yes, we all get to clap furiously to give Tinkerbell a new lease on life!
Enjoying Finding Neverland requires a certain willful suspension of sophistication. For my part, I was able to get over myself. The sentimental old fool won out over the curmudgeon and I found enough to enjoy in this production to satisfy me.
I found the beautifully staged denouement, in which Sylvia escapes this vale of tears and steps into a star-filled never neverland, genuinely moving.
Finding Neverland continues at the Hamilton Family Theatre in Cambridge through May 3, 2026. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Drayton Entertainment website.
Footnote: In real life, Barrie and Sylvia never married and there is good evidence that neither their relationship nor his marriage to Mary were ever consummated. The consensus of historians is that Barrie was most likely asexual and definitely not a paedophile. Barrie’s story and that of the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired him is tinged with sadness, loss, even suicide. The morbidly curious can consult Barrie’s Wikipedia entry.
[image: Drayton Entertainment]
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