It was one of the most extraordinary revelations that has ever burst on to me from a theatre programme. JM Barrie intended his most celebrated villain – Captain Hook – to be played by a woman. Not for equal opps reasons. Not to balance out the pantomime dame. But because Peter Pan is about the terrible things mothers do. They make you love them, but as soon as you fly out of the window they put bars on it and you can’t get back.
Acknowledging this, Sally Cookson, revising her 2012 Bristol Old Vic production, has made Anna Francolini both a winsome Mrs Darling and a goth-like Hook, with silver teeth, party dress and big, ramshackle hair. She tumbles gender expectations throughout. Madeleine Worrall’s Wendy, in striped pyjamas, thinks fondly of how she nearly made her big bro John faint by sitting on his head. Paul Hilton’s Peter, a gimlet-eyed dandy, gives John a Chinese burn when he says Wendy is “only a girl”. There never is enough of Nana the dog nanny. Ekow Quartey – head to toe in white frills that shiver when he shakes – is a marvel. Not least when he flies off the handle because he has to behave like a dog.
Cookson, who created last year’s revelatory Jane Eyre, does not pretend things away. Her Neverland is Now. Flying harnesses are explained as they are attached: but it is still thrilling to see children soaring above the stalls. There is a beautifully fiery Scottish Tiger Lily and a tremendous crocodile like a vacuum cleaner. At times the stage is not yet full enough, not quite spilling over with vivacity. That can grow. There are often moments when the mood is more melancholy than joyous. That must stay, being true to this sadly twisting story, where the biggest adventure of all is to die.
• Peter Pan is at the Olivier, London until 4 February
