Before I go any further, For those who don't know, for some reason Broadway only casts women for the role of Peter Pan. I know it's baffling and dumb . At least when Cathy Rigby played the role in 2000 Cathy would throw her voice to sound like a little British boy so I'll give her credit for TRYING to fit the role.You can't say the same about Peter Pan Live. Allison Williams makes no attempt to hide her female voice and her acting, at least in this play, is meh at best. Thus, I don't see Peter Pan, the energetic, fun, adventurer. Next!Who ever thought that putting Christopher Walken as Hook needs to be punched in the throat. Throughout the whole play, he looks like he couldn't care less. And if the man playing Hook isn't invested in the slightest in his role as the main antagonist, then why should we care. Even if Allison Williams did do a good job in her role, she still wouldn't be saving anything with how bad Christopher Walken does. Hook has ALWAYS been an entertaining character with how fun, sneaky and menacing he was whenever he was on screen But not here, Next!The issues I have with Allison Williams play into how cringe worthy it was when they have Wendy wanting to kiss Peter Pan. Because Allison doesn't try to hide that she's a girl in a male role, All I'm thinking is that the creators want to tease the viewers with a lesbian kiss. On top of teasing the viewer with a "Wendy and Peter might get together" sub plot that should've been left up for the audience to interpret. Bleh! That was awful... Next.The only time I was invested was when Hooks pirates were on screen because they put effort into their acting. Tiger Lilly was empty and dull, the Lost Boys are casted as men (there is no excuse for this) And the ending fight with Peter vs Hook is just a boring as Christopher Walken himself. And now that I think about it, I don't know why I'm bringing this up so late but, if Christopher Walken could fit into anything with the boring and uninterested attitude of his, he should be in more M Night Shyamalan movies. Yeah, I said it and I'm not taking it back.

I have watched this twice now (missed part of the original broadcast), the second time with local kids. They absolutely were enchanted. I really believe the problem so many reviewers are having (we can see the wires, why is a girl playing Peter, blah blah) is the reaching for an adult sense of cynicism.With the exception of an oddly-stone-faced Captain Hook (why not make him have an over-reaching evil expression?) I think the actors were very good, with some acquiring excellence. The sets were what they should be - obvious fantasies -- and the music, while mostly familiar, coupled with simple, easily-filmed choreography, was fun, especially "I Won't Grow Up." Could it have been better? Not with the film restrictions of a live broadcast. I would say this revealed and displayed convincingly the "innocence on the reluctant edge of adulthood."

Get out the cranberry sauce - you will need it for this turkey!This stinkeroo should forever end any pretension that Alison Williams should be in the Entertainment Industry. The only reason she was castis because her Father, Brian Williams, is a powerful part of NBC news.NBC hyped the daylights out of this production, and it still crashed and burned.As bad as Alison Williams was in this production, she was by no means the worst performer - that distinction has to go to Christopher Walkin. Walkin confuses "pirate" with "really bad drag queen " as he prances his way through his scenes. His Captain Hook comes across more as an aging pedophile than a serious villain.This is a lovely family friendly story. I encourage you to watch any of the previous versions of this production which have been filmed over the past fifty years.

Watching it with an open mind and without comparison to the Cathy Rigby and Mary Martin versions(both superior), Peter Pan Live is not quite as awful as it has been said to be, there were a few things that were good. But on the whole, Peter Pan Live never really got its feet of the ground, starting off just okay at best and getting worse the later it got.There were a few good performances, the two best ones being from Kelli O'Hara and Christian Borle. O'Hara is an incredibly touching Mrs. Darling and with its gentle, angelic quality and warm but not excessive vibrato has the best singing voice of the entire cast, so much so anybody would love for her to sing them to sleep. Borle's Smee is a riot and he looks like he is having a whale of a time and brings the most energy out of anybody involved(he is good as Mr Darling too though it was odd when you are so used to the dual role being Mr Darling and Hook). Singing-wise, he is close behind O'Hara, rich and characterful. Taylor Loudermann is rather mature for Wendy but has a very pleasant, sweet toned voice and comes across as compassionate and charming. The crocodile also looks great, Nana is very well-trained(her mannerisms done to perfection and providing some humour) and the pirates bring bucketfuls of liveliness to their scenes if a little too over-eager in places(though in honesty they were likely trying to compensate for Walken).Allison Williams doesn't come off entirely successfully as Peter. She tries her best and actually is youthful, has a pretty voice that is up to the challenges of the role(and the role is not easy at all) and has alluring smile and eyes, however she does come across as too gamine and nowhere near cocksure enough(not even in the Duel number), certainly not passing at all as a 12-year old or so boy. She doesn't look completely at ease with the wires either. Christopher Walken is a disaster, I do like Walken but he was completely wrong for Hook. He completely phones it in, looks as though he wandered on stage drunk and squints a lot as if trying to read the prompter, his dancing is also lazy(whereas the rest of the pirates showed great athleticism he was basically shuffling from one leg to another and his singing is constantly tired-sounding and underpowered). Never do you feel any kind of menace and when there was any humour with him it came across as unintentional, like his out of time tambourine playing and radio frequency-sounding last note in Tarantella. The Lost Boys would pass more for football hooligans and the Indians even when looking more like Hawaiians still look and act stereotypically. John and Michael are okay though their energy flounders later on, John baring a resemblance to Harry Potter is a tiny bit disconcerting, while Alanna Saunders is an alluring and athletic if too sexy Tiger Lily.Visually, the production didn't really appeal to me. There's a lot of detail evident in the sets, but the colours often do look too bright and gaudy, while the costumes are mixed, Peter's and Hook's are nice and traditional and Mrs Darling's is gorgeous, but Wendy's is rather low-cut, the Lost Boys' look way too small for them and the Indians' look like ones that would belong somewhere else other than Peter Pan. The camera work is shaky and over-reliant on panning and close-ups which completely betrays Williams' lack of boyish youthfulness and the wires are always too visible which takes away from the magic. The music and songs are wonderful and the orchestra do perform them well but they really needed much more energy and ensemble tightness than they had here, the early songs are not so bad but halfway through and onwards the pace slackens to the extent the production's almost lifeless.Staging-wise and pace-wise other than Walken this was where the production fell down most upon, though some may forgive how clumsy the wire work looked. The choreography is very lacking, especially with the pirates, sometimes out-of-sync and too simple, Tarantella was a train-wreck but at least had that clever touch with the trap door. The Indian dancing looked more like gyrating, which looked so misplaced. What was also lacking was chemistry between the performers, again the opening nursery scene was very well done, but Duel was let down hugely by a lack of tension and lack of chemistry between Peter and Hook(Peter and Wendy's chemistry wasn't completely believable either but that between him and Hook was the bigger let down). The climatic sword fight fares just as bad, children doing pretend sword-fighting in the school playground is less amateurish than what was choreographed here. The pacing sags badly halfway through and never recovers beyond that point, the story is a classic but with a lot of musical numbers and thin on story there was a very bloated and overlong feel with nowhere near enough magic.All in all, has its moments and not as entirely awful as all that but even when judged fairly and on its own in my opinion Peter Pan Live didn't pass with flying colours. 3/10 Bethany Cox