It seems that everybody loves a blooper. If you are one of those people who revels in the mistakes, mishaps and misfortunes that can inadvertently occur during a theatre production, then fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s disastrously accident-prone production of their version of J.M. Barrie’s children’s classic Peter Pan will split your sides with laughter.

The creators of the earlier success, The Play That Goes Wrong, have hit on a failproof recipe for riotous entertainment. Take a popular story, imagine everything that could go wrong during the show, line up a phenomenally fit and youthful cast, employ a director with an acute eye for detail and style and rehearse every sight gag, every pratfall, every bit of slapstick, every moment of chaos to tightly timed perfection and you’ve got a bombshell of a hilarious PG-rated theatrical bungle.

Writers Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields have remained true to Barrie’s original story, while inventing the bumbling amateur Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society as a clever device to introduce the myriad brilliantly staged blunders that make up Peter Pan Goes Wrong. And this is the play’s great paradox. Everything that goes wrong has to be just right. When Robert Grove’s Nana (Luke Joslin) bangs his head on his kennel, or the Narrator ( Jay Laga’aia) is bowled over by his chair, the illusion of incurred pain sends gasps through an audience, skilfully lured into Mischief Theatre Company’s sleight of sight.

Director Adam Meggido keeps a tight rein on the action. The play within the play is performed as heightened pantomime and Meggido orchestrates carefully choreographed business that retains the familiar locations of the Darling household, the Neverland Forest, Captain Hook’s pirate ship and the crocodile’s sea.

There is no let-up for this talented company. In spite of ensuring that what is wrong goes right, the cast appear to skirt the knife’s edge of imminent disaster. Tammy Weller‘s lightning costume changes as Mrs Darling, Tinker Bell and Annie beggar belief. Darcy Brown’s Peter Pan finds flying at times an uncontrolled peril, as does Adam Dunn while hanging embarrassedly bottoms up. Connor Crawford looks the perfect Hook in his flashy Restoration Pirate’s costume but a tilting boat on a spinning revolve makes for a dangerous voyage for all aboard. Jordan Prosser gains sympathy as Max, condemned to play the scorned role of the crocodile. Francine Cain is excellent as Wendy and George Kemp is very impressive as a nerdish, headphone-wearing John Darling and as Smee. Spare a sigh too for Teagan Wouters’ suffering Lucy.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong is no intellectual heavyweight. It is high-octane, belly-laughing entertainment with a capital E, the best medicine one can hope to have, though questionably at the prospect of another’s painful predicament. Don’t miss your dose of this tonic of fun.