‘Peter Pan Goes Improper’ overview: Neverland nincompoops deliver laughs on Broadway

I do consider in f – – kups! I do! I do! 

And that’s what “Peter Pan Goes Wrong,” the fortunately hyperactive comedy that opened Wednesday evening on Broadway, gives: missteps, mayhem, incapacitations, defective units and, in a roundabout means, “Fawlty Towers.”

The very humorous British play’s premise is the season’s easiest. The newbie Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society tries to placed on “Peter and Wendy” and fails epically. 

However the execution of the disasters is nearly balletic … effectively, if in “Swan Lake” the units collapsed and unhinged youngsters booed the dancers.

Chris (Henry Shields), the play-within-a-play’s director and its Captain Hook, is the spitting picture of John Cleese because the well-known Britcom “Fawlty Towers”’ Basil, the beleaguered resort proprietor. And like Basil, he exaggeratedly tries to maintain every part collectively and bungles it each time. 

He has to deal with shouting Dennis (Jonathan Sayer), who has his traces fed to him by headphones as he performs Michael Darling however retains reciting radio commercials as an alternative. And there’s Robert (Henry Lewis), who takes on the a part of Nana the canine and will get caught within the doggy door. 

Good factor Neil Patrick Harris because the narrator is on-hand with a chainsaw to assist lower him out. If solely he may make his entrances and exits correctly.

Poor Robert additionally has PTSD from a deadly manufacturing of “Oliver!”, and Sandra (Charlie Russell) acts like she’s a hippie dancing in a area as Wendy. The short change Annie (Nancy Zamit) makes from Mrs. Darling to the maid is an actor’s risqué nightmare.  

There are hookups, betrayals, energy outages, inappropriate sound cues and near-death experiences. And a mid-show alternative for Peter Pan is required. The efficiency goes so off-the-rails that on this Neverland the youngsters cheer for the should-be menacing crocodile (a beaming Matthew Cavendish).

The viewers is pummeled with slapstick in director Adam Meggido’s manufacturing, and the antics by no means let up. Not that anyone involves a “Goes Improper” present in the hunt for serenity and introspection. Mischief Theatre’s equally ill-fated “Play That Goes Improper” was a success on Broadway in 2019 that includes many of those robust comedic actors.

At two hours and 5 minutes over two acts, the impact of the wackiness wears off a tad towards the tip — despite the fact that the ultimate chase scene is brilliantly choreographed on Simon Scullion’s set of one million secrets and techniques.

And a few adults within the viewers (not this one) would possibly flip up their noses at Shields’ pantomime-like insistence that youngsters boo Captain Hook. And so they boo loads. A couple of theatergoers seemed aghast, like some drunks had simply thrown their bras at King Lear. To them I’ll give the alternative recommendation that Peter Pan would: Develop up! Shields’ self-debasement is pleasant.

That’s actually all this lovable solid desires anyway — for us to get rowdy for them to be ridiculed.