Pan’s Asylum – Union Theatre, Southwark

Writer & Director: Ash Felkner

Reviewer: Christine Stanton

“Reimagined“

3 / 5

The tale of Peter Pan is one you’re undoubtably familiar with – the boy in Neverland who never grows up, alongside pirates, fairies and crocodiles who make up part of his exciting adventures.

Ash Felkner takes this classic story and reimagines it with a darker lens and a sadly, more realistic outlook. Neverland has become the place you can never leave – an asylum filled with troubled patients convinced that those in charge aren’t to be trusted. Pan, with the help of Bird (Chiedza Chikanza) tries to rally his Lost Boys (Bradley Peake, Ray Redmond, Rudra Bharadwaj, Rebecca Tozzell-Glozza) to fight against their treatment, encouraging them to withdraw from medication and take a stand against the evil pirates aka doctors played by Hannah Bunker & Kamilla Gregorovitch.

It’s an intriguing spin, and one that works well with the original material, fan theories have frequently highlighted the potentials of Peter Pan being delusional, or a villain – so seeing one of these theories created and fleshed out is enjoyable, familiar and cleverly applied. It’s easy to draw the correlations to Peter Pan, with the character of Smee (Bunker) in particular having brilliantly recognisable mannerisms and lines. Gregorovitch performs with a violin as the Lost Boys frolic around the facility, and Chikanza occasionally sings with beautiful, ethereal vocals, which break the clinical, coldness of the asylum, before the stark jump back to their reality. The cast are wonderfully enthusiastic and collaborative, capturing both the spirit of youthful optimism, and their limited freedom well.

Being that it is a research and development performance – there are some areas that fall short slightly, but will hopefully be worked on with future iterations. The sound is the biggest issue currently, as even when at the front of the theatre, some of the poems and dialogue are hard to hear from some characters. Additionally, it would be great to get some more backstory on some of the patients to flesh out the story better – Redmond currently show’s Tootle’s despair about his daughter with brilliant emotion, which helps to connect with him further both as a character and a performer.

Currently a creative patchwork of ideas and styles, it’ll be intriguing to see the progression of Pan’s Asylum as it gets worked on further in future.

Runs until 9th November 2026