The National Theatre of Scotland director John Tiffany knows how to get his actors to make an eye-catching entrance. Alan Cumming descended on a rope upside-down and naked in The Bacchae, and in David Greig's new version of JM Barrie's play, transposed from Edwardian London to Victorian Edinburgh, Peter is first glimpsed prowling high above the stage like a flying animal. He is feral and sinister, trying to get in at the nursery window. Two horn-like quiffs in his hair give a nod to Pan, the great god of chaos.
Peter's ability to play havoc with feelings – notably those of generations of Darling women who remember the siren call of Neverland long after they have grown up and become mothers – while never feeling anything himself, is the great tragedy of this drama. The tension is between the seductive pull of eternal childhood and the tragedy of never growing up, which must mean premature death, or, in Peter's case, an emotional retardation.
This tension is hinted at in this revival – from the moment when Mrs Darling first sees Peter at the nursery window, recognising the danger – but it remains tantalisingly elusive, just beyond Tiffany's and the audience's gaze, like Neverland itself. The heart never lurches and the throat never scratches, partly because Kevin Guthrie's Peter doesn't display sufficient heartless charm to be mesmerising. Kirsty Mackay's Wendy is no Edwardian good girl, but there is no sexual tension or longing in her relationship with Peter.
There is no difficulty with the transposition from prissy Edwardian London to gritty Edinburgh; indeed, there are advantages, such as Cal MacAninch's bare-chested Hook, miles away from the Eton-educated dandy of tradition who has become such an unthreatening panto villain. The way this Hook runs his finger across a boy's cheek is disturbing. Tinkerbell, too, is brilliantly realised as a dancing flame who will burn anyone who angers her.
The main difference from Barrie's original is the introduction of the Forth Bridge's construction, built using its own gangs of lost boys, whose childhoods were destroyed by their labour. Barrie wasn't above moralising himself (Peter's "To die would be an awfully big adventure" was a siren call to the first world war generation), but the bridge device creates a shift that makes it far less magical and powerful. The nursery window remains ajar for a thrilling Peter Pan.
