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music & lyrics by Gary Barlow & Eliot Kennedy, book by James Graham, directed by David Connolly

Drayton Entertainment, Hamilton Family Theatre, Cambridge

April 17–May 3, 2026

Mrs. Du Maurier: “That man is a grown-up behaving like a boy”

Drayton Entertainment is currently presenting the Canadian premiere of the 2014 musical Finding Neverland. The musical is based on the 2004 film of the same name and on the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee. The musical, like its sources, centres on Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie and how in 1904 he came to write the classic play Peter Pan. The musical is charming, the large cast could not be bettered and the production is an absolute delight.

The musical opens with Barrie in a difficult situation. Charles Frohman, the director of the Acting Company that Barrie writes for, urgently needs a hit play from Barrie to make up for the failure of his most recent play The Wedding Guest. Barrie, however, is out of ideas. Barrie happens to meet Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a young widow with four children, three of whom are playing pirates.

As Barrie’s friendship with Sylvia grows stronger, it becomes increasingly obvious that the boys’ play-acting is inspiring the ideas Barrie will use in Peter Pan. Barrie had already invented the concept of Neverland, a place where children never grow older, when his own brother died.

The action concludes with a performance of Peter Pan at the Llewylens’ home, since Sylvia is deathly ill, where the Llewelyn children recognize themselves, and their big shaggy dog, in the play.

The main difficulty with a work about another work, like Finding Neverland, is that it necessarily places itself as secondary to the greater work it is about. Stephen Sondheim gets around this problem in Sunday in the Park with George (1984) by having only the first act feature the creation of Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1886). The second features Seurat’ son and others discussing the painting and art in general.

A large part of Finding Neverland is about discovering all the pieces that Barrie will use when he writes Peter Pan – the boys, the dog, the pirates, Captain Hook, the longing for a mother. For those familiar with Peter Pan, it is a lot of fun to see the sources for figures in Barrie’s play before he does. In that way the entire musical is like the first act of Sunday in the Park.

Fortunately, there is more to Finding Neverland than spot the source. The musical’s primary emphasis is on the importance of imagination and play, two capacities that adults tend to lose over time. Barrie finds his interactions with the Llewelyn children reawaken the inner child he had forgotten he had. Barrie is immediately attracted to Sylvia’s own playfulness which is so unlike his wife’s stodginess and care for social appearances.

Most of the show’s best scenes involve transformations of staid everyday reality into something fantastic. Probably the best example of this is when Mrs. Barrie invites the Llewylens over for a formal dinner because Sylvia’s mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier, wife of famed novelist George du Maurier, is a woman of high social standing. As it happens Barrie, Sylvia and the four boys become bored and we see how their imagination transforms the dinner into a panoply of fantastic desserts and the guests into circus characters. On a smaller scale, Barrie listening to Charles Frohman speaking and brandishing the silver handle of his cane suddenly sees the director metamorphose into Captain Hook.

The music and lyrics of Gary Barlow (lead singer of the group Take That) and Eliot Kennedy is very much like those of Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman for Mary Poppins in its mixture of nursery rhymes, folk song and Edwardian music hall, but the team’s excursions into 1980s-style pop songs for the big numbers of Barrie and Sylvia take the show into deeper territory.

Drayton has assembled a starry cast for this production. Robert Markus is a soulful J.M. Barrie. His Barrie is not a stuffed shirt like the other society men around him. Rather his Barrie seems burdened with a deep melancholy which is not helped by his shrewish wife or his demanding director. Markus shows how Barrie naturally lightens up when he Is around the Llewelyn children. The fact that they are willing to have him join in their games makes him realize there is a different way of living and of seeing the world that he used to have. Markus’s voice is as strong as ever and, in fact, seems to have gained in expressivity. His soaring number “Stronger” is a great close to Act 1.

Ellen Denny is a wonderfully ethereal Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. Denny has a lovely voice that somehow combines both strength and gentleness, ideal characteristics for a woman like Sylvia who is able to control her four rambunctious boys and yet hide her illness so it won’t disturb them. Denny brings out all the passion in the fine song “All That Matters” and her duets with Barrie, “Neverland” and “What You Mean To Me” are deeply expressive of the deep bond the two souls feel for each other.

The most amazing performances are those of Leif Bernal-Manninen, Lennox Johnston Potter, Eamon Knell and Oliver Woon who play the four Llewelyn boys — Michael, Jack, George and Peter. Their acting is completely natural and they have no difficulty adopting a British accent. All four voices are strong, singly and together. As Peter, the bookish boy with whom Barrie most identifies, Woon is earnest and articulate. Woon and Markus have a joyful number together, “When Your Feet Don’t Touch the Ground” about how imagination can free a person of the pains of life. All four boys give a spirited performance of "We’re All Made of Stars" that hints that the four understand there is a hidden depth to what they are so brightly singing.

Among the many adults, Thom Allison stands out as Charles Frohman. Allison shows that even when Frohman severely chides Barrie, he still has sympathy for the playwright. In the brief periods when Allison plays Captain Hook, he perfectly captures the character’s combination of bluster and unintentional comedy. Someone please cast Allison as Hook in Peter Pan. He’d be wonderful.

When you enter the auditorium Brandon Kleiman’s set makes an immediate, positive impression. Placed within the regular stage proscenium, Kleiman has designed another proscenium painted to look like a storybook illustration of a theatre. All across the front are old-fashioned shell-like footlights. When the painted red curtain rises, we see painted legs to match the proscenium. For big numbers these legs fold backwards to create more space. Fitting it with Kleinman’s playful set design are Jenine Kroeplin’s fine array of period costumes that include early 20th-century conceptions of what a bear, a mermaid and a crocodile might look like.

David Connolly directs the scenes involving Barrie and the Llewelyns with great sensitivity. His fantasy sequences burst with invention. I do wish, though, that he did not feel the need to urge the comic characters to play their roles in such an exaggerated way.

Drayton Entertainment lists Finding Neverland as suitable for ages 7 and up. I think it is more suitable for 10 or 12 and up because the musical is not a version of Peter Pan but is rather about J.M. Barrie finding a source of inspiration. Besides that, the more audience members already know about Peter Pan, the more they will get out of the show since so much fun involves spotting aspects in real life that Barrie’s imagination will transform when writing the play.

For those with a good knowledge of Peter Pan, Finding Neverland is a joyful and moving experience. It asks in a delightful way why adults leave behind the imaginative powers they once possessed as children. The Drayton production is so ideal it deserves the widest possible audience.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Oliver Woon as Peter Llewelyn Davies, Wallace as Porthos (the dog) and Robert Markus as J.M. Barrie; Robert Markus as J.M. Barrie with ensemble; Robert Markus as J.M. Barrie and Ellen Denny as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies; Thom Allison as Charles Frohman with ensemble. © 2026 Hilary Gauld.

For tickets visit: www.draytonentertainment.com.