Why an evil Peter Pan is no great surprise

It may not be very festive to criticise the childhood hero of many a tot. But it's high time I blogged about something book-related, so here goes. I had my eye on Christina Henry's Lost Boy since a while back, especially after having enjoyed her Alice books (even if they didn't have that much to do with Alice in Wonderland), but I held back, as I felt it only fair that I should read the original Peter Pan story before I got to Henry's dark take on it. Though I have seen a good many adaptations of and riffs on Peter Pan, until recently I had neither seen the play by J.M. Barrie nor read his novelisation of it, Peter and Wendy. Now I've read the latter, considered the most important Peter Pan text by those responsible for Penguin Classics. It's easy to see what they mean, as Peter and Wendy offers a more detailed narrative than any play could, but I do still need to catch the play - in unadulterated form - some day. I still can't say for certain whether Skull Rock (not in the book) is a Disney invention or not.

Anyway, having read Peter and Wendy, I thought I could in good conscience move on to Lost Boy. In Lost Boy, Peter Pan is a villain. Strangely, though, this was no great shock to me, nor I suspect to a great many other people. In fact, my own reaction is more or less "Well, duh" or "Tell me something I don't know". I don't think I'm alone in thinking there is something a little off about J.M. Barrie's creation. Youtube videos on "dark stories behind Disney films" like to point out that J.M. Barrie more than hints that Peter killed off lost boys who committed the crime of growing up. As for the Peter Pan-as-villain idea, it has been done before: in Once Upon A Time (still my favourite TV series: how I miss it!), Peter Pan was one of the most memorable "guest villains", being the main threat of the first half of season 3.

So why is it less unlikely that Peter Pan should be a villain than, say, Winnie the Pooh? How similar are the two villain Peters in Once and Lost Boy to the original, and what can be said in defence of J.M. Barrie's version?

I didn't much care for the versions of Peter I came across as a kid, but this wasn't because I thought there was something sinister about him. The explanation was quite simply that I was Team Hook (that was long before Once nearly ruined the Captain for me). It's when you revisit the story as an adult that you start to question the good intentions of the protagonist, and the feeling of unease is only strengthened when you actually read Peter and Wendy. Neverland in the book is a pretty creepy place. Unlike in the Disney film (which, to do it credit, otherwise follows the original story rather faithfully) childen actually both kill and get killed on the island, and Peter is largely responsible for it. When he is away, the Lost Boys and the pirates are content with "biting their thumbs at each other", but that isn't good enough for Peter. Early on, he makes a careless comment about killing pirates, and one must assume that the skirmishes with the Indians were equally lethal until there is a truce. What's more, he isn't a very good leader. No-one is allowed to know more than him, so as he doesn't quite know what a twin is, the Twins live in existential uncertainty. As he's unable to distinguish between when he and his gang have had a real or a make-believe meal, the boys often go hungry. And yes, the Youtube videos are right: "The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according to as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out".

As for his relationship with the Darlings, Peter is actually only interested in getting Wendy to Neverland as she can tell stories: the two boys just come along for the ride. When they keep falling from the sky in their flight to the island, Wendy is constantly afraid that Peter will tire of preventing their fall, as he sees saving them as a game rather than caring one way or another whether they live or not. Once in Neverland, Peter has no intention of ever letting the Darling children go back to their home, and nearly sabotages their attempt to do so, though he is finally reluctantly moved by Mrs Darling's plight. The boy who never grows up is a thoughtless, selfish one, and there is even something off-putting about those supposedly beguiling milk teeth.

However, the reimaginings of him in Once Upon A Time and Lost Boy are pretty harsh. The Once Peter is probably the one who would have upset J.M. Barrie most, not because he's villainous, but because he is really an adult, an irresponsible small-time crook called Malcolm who abandons his son in exchange for (almost) eternal youth. "A child can't have a child", he explains as the crying boy is carried away from the island by the Shadow (a separate, malign entity). Reinvented as Peter Pan, a name taken from his son's lost toy (the little'un having a flair for names), Malcolm lives it up for many, many years. He lures other children to the island to keep him company (doubling as the Pied Piper), until the time comes when he has to prolong his life by getting hold of the heart of his great-grandson. Not a problem for this Peter, who sets about it, until the boy's friends and relatives put a few spanners in the works.

The Peter Pan in Lost Boy is closer to the original, not least because he is a child, though a mad and malicious one. Lost Boy is essentially a back story for Hook, though the protagonist Jamie isn't very Hookish, and could more or less be any intelligent Lost Boy who gets disillusioned by his leader and friend. The trouble starts for real when Peter brings Charlie, a boy who is really too young for the Neverland life, to the island. Jamie starts caring for him which makes Peter jealous. Through the ensuing adventures it becomes more and more apparent that Peter is a monster who has to be the centre of the universe for all of the boys, Jamie especially, and who will try to get rid of anyone who stands in his way.

The dark Neverland of Lost Boy isn't so far removed from the original Neverland as the setting of Henry's Alice books was from Wonderland. J.M. Barrie's Neverland was, as I've mentioned, rather unsettling already, so Henry's interpretation doesn't feel altogether "out there". But while I liked Lost Boy quite a lot, and hugely enjoyed the dastardly Peter Pan in Once (brilliantly played by Robbie Kay, who must be older than he looks), I feel that neither Henry nor the creators of Once have quite grasped J.M. Barrie's intentions. Nor do they have to, obviously, as long as their riffs on the Peter Pan story work as their own thing, which they do. But it would be wrong to judge J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan on the basis of these reinterpretations. Barrie's Peter often behaves questionably to say the least, but that is because he is supposed to be the eternal, typical child: "gay, innocent and heartless" (I don't have to explain that "gay" means "carefree" in this context, do I?). Barrie's view of children is unsentimental, and Peter isn't the only one who acts selfishly. The Darling children, at first, have no intention of coming home to their grieving parents until years in the future, when they blithely envisage getting a hero's welcome. Their parents' distress isn't real to them - even Wendy, who is almost grown-up and should know better, dallies. When the "do you believe in fairies" scene is written into the novel's narrative, Barrie is aware that not every kid would play ball in the circumstances: "Many clapped. Some didn't. A few little beasts hissed."

To sum up, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan is selfish not because he is Peter, but because he is a child. To make out that he's much worse than all the other children in Neverland is not completely good form. Then again, I never went to Eton, so I don't complain.

The Crown season three: What side is Peter Morgan on?

I was cautiously looking forward to the third season of The Crown. I felt guilty for not getting into the first season more, and the second one didn't really hit home with me either. Nevertheless, I acknowledged that it was well-made and well acted. This time around, with no favourite series featuring fantastic villains to compete, I felt that I was finally ready to appreciate it as much as period drama fans generally seem to do.

Sadly not, though. The series still has the same strengths and weaknesses as in previous seasons. On the plus side, the acting's still great (mostly). Olivia Colman doesn't convince quite as much as Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth; you never really buy that she's supposed to be a bit of a cold fish, as her face is too expressive. Nevertheless, she gives a good performance as always. I preferred Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip to Matt Smith's version: Smith's boyishness, which is charming when he plays the Doctor, grated rather when he was Philip, especially in season two. Menzies is a bit stiff, but has great rapport with Colman and other co-actors. While it felt unnecessary to recast the roles of Lord Mountbatten and the Duke of Windsor, seeing as Greg Wise and Alex Jennings did such a good job of them and could easily have been aged up just a bit more, the advantage was that we got to see Charles Dance and Derek Jacobi on screen. Jane Lapotaire was spectacular as Philip's mother, a put-upon, chainsmoking nun. Also, the production values are impressive, and the series still feels like a quality product. On the minus side, the pacing was still slow, and there wasn't much going on in each episode. Some of the events highlighted deserved the attention they got, while others didn't.

However, this time around something else bugged me that hadn't before. Back in season one, I'd assumed Peter Morgan's project was about understanding both the Queen and the British monarchy better. It didn't have to be a ringing endorsement by any means, but I saw it as an earnest endeavour to find out the inner workings of the monarchy and what it must be like to be its figurehead. I thought we were supposed to see things from the Queen's point of view, as in Morgan's film The Queen. That's not to say it should go unchallenged, but I expected the base note of the series, so to speak, to be sympathy with the Queen.

This is what I thought we got in season one, which I even claimed was good PR for the royals. In season two, after I read an article where Peter Morgan showed republican leanings, doubt set in. By now, and after having heard some more choice quotes from Morgan about the Queen and the monarchy (admittedly, from a hostile source) I'm starting to wonder if The Crown is in fact a Trojan horse of a series. It attracts largely pro-royal viewers with the promise of making a believable drama out of Queen Elizabeth's home life, then starts to feed them the message that the monarchy, to which she's devoted her life, isn't really worth it. Maybe those early instances in the series of the Queen putting duty before her own wishes weren't explorations of ethical dilemmas at all but part of a bigger pattern, which is supposed to show us how the Crown demands far too much of its bearer. We seem to be getting the "poor little royals" argument for abolishing the monarchy again and again: look how the members of the royal family have to sacrifice who they really are, and how miserable it makes them. Wouldn't they be happier living an "ordinary" life?

Now, it's not as if I were an ardent monarchist myself, though I happen to think that the Swedish and the British royals are (for the most part) doing a good job. In principle, there's not much to be said for monarchy, and if Morgan wants to get rid of it, that's a perfectly respectable opinion. However, if the purpose of The Crown was to show us how worthless said crown is, then it hasn't been playing fair. Whether monarchist or republican, one doesn't want to be made a fool of. Anyway, the "poor little royals" argument doesn't cut much ice with me as it's possible, if difficult, for a royal to opt out of the whole thing. They seldom choose to do so, however. Hmmm, wonder why.

This royal rant has left me little time to get into the specifics of season three. I enjoyed the two first episodes - especially the second one, where Princess Margaret (a hilarious Helena Bonham Carter) charms President Johnson. Episode three was "Aberfan" and can't be called enjoyable, but it did pack a punch and had something interesting to say about why we shy away from the grief-stricken (because we think we'd be rubbish at comforting them) and why we shouldn't stay away (because even if we don't have much to say, showing up is a help). Whether it was entirely ethical to highlight these dilemmas on the back of an actual tragedy is another matter. Episode four brought us Lapotaire, but one of the plot lines - about how poorly received a documentary about the royal family was - was, according to one review I read, a complete invention. A journalist called John Armstrong plays an important part in the episode, but apparently there was no such person. Learning this shook me and made me question whether Morgan actually knows what he's doing. If the documentary wasn't poorly received, then the whole point of this plot is undermined. Morgan may not care for the documentary himself, but he shouldn't foist his opinions on the national press of the day.

Then followed a string of episodes where we see royals discontent with their lot. The Queen confides to a chum who's helping her out with her horses that horse breeding was what she really wanted to do with her life, not "the other thing". Prince Philip has a mid-life crisis triggered by the moon landing - what is his life of visiting factories for dentures and such-like worth compared to walking on the moon? (As to that, I bet the employees of that factory were happy to get a spot of royal glamour.) Prince Charles doesn't feel he can get his voice heard. His split with Camilla is blamed firmly on his family, for dramatic effect (though if she did two-time him with Andrew Parker-Bowles, I would have thought that had something to do with it). Princess Margaret gets routinely shafted, as in the previous two seasons. And so on and so forth. It's pretty tiring, though things do get more exciting every time Margaret's around.

"Everything is politics", prime minister Wilson glumly states when an adviser questions whether anyone would want to make political hay out of the tragedy at Aberfan. Ironically, The Crown is best when it's not political, but dwells on human relationships. The friendship between the Queen and Wilson is nicely handled, and more believable than in Morgan's play The Audience. Philip reaching out to a group of clerics he has earlier derided is a moving payoff to an uneven episode. After Margaret tries to kill herself, she and her sister are allowed a scene of real affection and understanding, where Queen Elizabeth confesses that to go on without her sister would be unbearable. Moments like these are welcome, though I feel myself more and more viewing the protagonists in The Crown as fictional characters who happen to have the same names and positions as some real-life figures. I do believe that's the best way.