clarinet_king I liked the Peter Pan that Disney produced in 1953, I liked the animation and the story line. Captain Hook's fear of the crocodile was hilarious and Mr. Smee was the comic relief for the pirates. This NBC version is far from great, it was terrible. I watched about 5 minutes at a time because my sister recorded it. She loved it and constantly sang the annoying songs over and over. Ms. Williams Peter Pan was overly cocky and tried to be center of attention the entire time. Christopher Walken showed little emotion and was horrible in this role. He did other brilliant movies, this isn't one of them. The crocodile was a robot controlled by people and Hook did not willing give up his ship. IN SHORT, don't bother to watch if you liked the Disney version.

TheLittleSongbird 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

chrissytwo I thoroughly enjoyed this production. I am not a critic so I will not comment on lighting etc., as some others have. As a 57 year old who refuses to grow up, and who also saw the Mary Martin production, I thought this one was great! I was very impressed with Allison Williams and the whole cast. Christopher Walken was entertaining and the two boys who played John and Michael were very good. I was impressed with those two, as the younger boy had no prior acting experience. I did not notice any lip syncing as someone else mentioned, and I wouldn't have cared if they had. The sets were colorful and beautiful. The voices were great and the production went very smoothly, which was great for a live performance. Peter Pan live was a wonderful, entertaining, and welcome distraction from the garbage and news that is on television now. I hope that NBC continues with the live productions every December.

gayleoldsettler I loved the songs like "Is it Just for Pretend" , "Never Grow Up" and the insult song Pan and Hook sing to one another. It was a well acted, well sung production. Allison Williams was great. I have never heard of her before this and she was a great Peter Pan with her androgynous look in the makeup and costume. She has a very nice singing voice. Christopher Walken was hilarious, perfect choice for Hook. The dance numbers with the Lost Boys and the Pirates and Hook were fun to watch. I did not notice big gaffs in this live show. It did seem that Peter Pan flew a little slow but this was so minor. I recorded it and have been re watching it.