Okay so I just must get this off my chest hairs.... The other night I watched NBCs Peter Pan Live on Hulu. I like Peter Pan. I like the different versions. I like the old silent movie version too, which is the closest thing youll ever see to the original stage version (minus sound of course). Ive even seen the well known American musical live, that this was loosely based upon. I thought, ahh, this should be much more fun than last years The Sound Of Music! However........... Whoops! How can a major network with an undisclosed huge budget (advertising was being sold for $350,000 per 30 second spots), turn out something so amateurishly produced and directed? The cast were working their little butts off making sure they were hitting their marks, remembering their lines and singing on key. Their job was the hardest for sure. So why couldnt the director place cameras correctly? Cameras were constantly randomly roving and even appearing in each others shots a few times! They also managed to shoot off set several times. Im sorry but theres no excuse. The set is a constant. The top of the set is always going to be there. Camera operators should be looking at that as they frame their shots, not just the action. They used cranes and steadicams. The latter always seemed to be on a slightly wide angle, a little too wide. It works okay for more static shots but the distortion really shows up when cameras pan and move. Next up, the two most important roles, Pan and Hook. Allison Williams played Pan. She did a decent job with her British accent, although she was waaayyyy too posh and upper class. That killed it right there. She managed her lines and singing okay. But didnt have the edge needed for Pan. She was too nice and soft. Needed to be a bit rougher. Flying is hard but she did quite well with that. Only got stuck upside down once for about 5 seconds and her costume gathered up her back awkwardly. She can play a good sympathetic character I think and is very talented, but just miscast. NBC clearly do not understand Peter Pan. Hook was a much bigger disappointment for me. The preview photoshoots and poster had Christoper Walken in better makeup, glued on frowny eyebrows and a curly wig. The clearly changed something along the way as he sported a horrible wig, a very pale face and painted thin eyebrows with not enough facial hair. I wonder if he complained he couldnt do subtle acting through fake eyebrows or something? Whatever the reason, he looked like death warmed up! Whilst the staging and camera work certainly didnt serve him at all, why was he throwing away all those wonderful lines, both in the dialogue and songs. Theres so much to play with and chew on and he just flatly spewed them out. He didnt get it. Has he never performed on stage before or seen this musical? My little toe could have put in a strong performance. His timing seemed off with pauses and he kept looking down off to below the camera, either to look at a monitor or read his cue cards. He wasnt connecting with the other actors at all. Just looking ahead when he should have made eye contact with the other characters. I was embarrassed to watch, both for him and NBC. The pirates are a great opportunity for diverse cartoon characters. Only one just about hit the mark. He was the large pirate. The others I cant recall. Smee was performed by veteran Christian Borle, a seasoned performer who also performed the father George Darling. Odd because this role always goes to the Hook actor. Again he was miscast as he was so much stronger visually in height, competence and presence than Walken, I found me wishing he were Hook! Such a shame! The dog Nana was perfect! Perhaps Christopher Walken should have spent a month with the animal trainer? It was quite a stretch for American TV audiences to accept fully grown men as lost boys. Probably another bad call that could have been avoided by employing younger looking lads at least. Tiger Lilys crew were an odd mix of assorted token ethnicities. Yet NBC made a point of hiring native American Alanna Saunders for the role and changing her song to something perceived a little more politically correct, for fear of some sort of backlash. I disliked the use of CG effects for Tinkerbell and the fairy dust. That should have been achieved using more traditional methods such as lighting and practical effects. The costumes were not coherent. Almost as though different departments were in charge of each group of characters. The Lost man-child boys were in Eton type rugby clothes and more. Pans costume looked as though it were made by someone from a chorus lines mother! Large fishnet and sparkles? Really??? The Tiger Lily dancers costumes were to me quite undefined. I suspect NBC were trying to give the female viewers some eye candy hoping to check off another box? After reading the main press reviews, I see that many do not understand the Peter Pan tradition of using a woman to play a boy (originally for legal reasons not being able to employ minors on stage after 9pm). The English theatre has a long standing tradition of cross dressing its principles which translated to movies featuring Old Mother Riley and now TV shows such as Mrs Brown. Modern day viewers dont remember the Mary Martin TV special from 1960. Sadly not a single reviewer mentioned the 1976 Peter Pan with Mia Farrow as Pan and Danny Kaye as Hook! Sets were also incoherent and not very HD TV friendly. Brash and crude in any ways. Flat old school TV lighting just made things worse. Why did this look like bad dated TV, instead of a cool fantasy using modern moody subtle looks people come to expect from prime time? Was this put together by a bunch of old farts? In conclusion, even though NBC claim they are planning the next one, I think they should stop it at once. At least continuing down this road. Without casting correctly and an audience, these shows have a feeling of watching a corpse being reanimated by sheer force of will. Im all for big TV events and specials. I think the only way to pull this type of thing off one of two ways. The first is to put on an actual stage show for real with a real live audience. Sure, have VIPs there and make that part of the event, mush like the Oscars. But use the largest stage ever with the most lavish sets and costumes. Have an orchestra in the pit. Put cameras up close and broadcast this live. Stream it to theaters across the USA! Earlier this year on September 28th in the UK, I watched an as live Billy Elliott The Musical Live (because it was actually taped a few hours earlier) taped from a live performance at Londont Victoria Palace in another cinema elsewhere in the country to a sold out house! It worked and it worked great! They even topped it with a dance after the show featuring 25 past Billys!!! Hell, even the Doctor Who 50th special was shown in cinemas around the world in 3D! I cant help but think they could have actually pulled this off reasonably well if this were a UK production. So NBC could easily try this and it would be many times more successful but please figure out how to better handle the commercials. Most reviewers who watched this Peter Pan Live said the commercials killed the pace and momentum! The second way to pull this off is to just film the musical as a nice TV musical movie. Forget the live part but make the damn thing look good!!! Light it properly, make it magical and filmy and use a show runner who actually knows the damn show and what works, what doesnt and why. This broadcast had half of the viewers compared to their Sound Of Music effort last year. I feel NBC missed the point here and dont get theater or even their audiences. A desperate move by an aging dinosaur. Cant wait for next year! Watch the clip below and see if you agree... if you dare.... youtu.be/4cfJtGyNvM4
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 20:28:52 +0000
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