Peter Pan, Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Dec 5 2007 By Diane Parkes, Birmingham Mail

DIRECTOR Rachel Kavanaugh has sprinkled a touch of magic dust onto this musical production of the classic tale of the boy who never grows up.

There are plenty of wonderful moments, not least when the nursery disappears and Pan takes to the sky with his new friends, the Darling children Wendy, John and Michael.

Then there is the zippy Tinkerbell whose traditional fairy outfit is replaced by a red light which dashes across the stage causing mischief one moment and saving the day the next.

This is no Disney Peter Pan. The Lost Boys are anything but cute - in fact it wouldn't surprise me if they grew up to be a gang of hoody-wearing, graffiti-daubing problem-kids.

And Pan himself, played by Peter Caulfield, is a curious kilt-wearing misfit whose war cry of Cock-a-doodle-doo and refusal to face the real world would actually make him more than a bit annoying if you had to spend much time with him.

Wendy, played by Gina Beck, is charming as she switches from little girl to nagging mum to the Lost Boys.

But the runaway star of this show is David Birrell's Captain Hook whose dastardly evilness is so loveable that you just want to take him home and give him a cup of hot chocolate. In fact, he is so watchable I almost wanted to jump on stage and save him .

Hook is given ample support by his gang of pirates, particularly Gerard Carey as Smee. And a good deal of imagination has gone in to creating Hook's nemesis the Crocodile whose slow lumbers across the front of the stage are moments of great theatre.

This is not a production for little children, not least because at press night it ran to two hours and 40 minutes. But for older youngsters and adults it is an example of what a Christmas show can be.