Peter and Alice Script

[Dani1923]

I found a free pdf script of the 2013 play Peter and Alice! So if you want to read it for yourself, you can!
If you do read it, please comment your opinion!
I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I read parts of it, and without going into too much detail, there is a scene between Michael Llewelyn Davies and JMB towards the end that is very inaccurate, which is surprising since it was accurate in other details in other parts of the play and I’m almost certain that John Logan must have got a least some of those details from visiting this website, so I’m surprised he didn’t do enough research on the site to find the information he needed to get an accurate portrayal of Michael and JMB.

I’ll give a more detailed review when I’ve read the whole thing. 

Here’s the link to the script:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxtaG9sZGVydGhlc2lzfGd4OjYxYjczOWRjOTA4ZjZhNTU

[Hannah Grippo]

I have this on my kindle, but have yet to read it. Perhaps this winter break. I would have loved, loved to see Ben Whishaw and Judi Dench play Peter and Alice (the original actors for this play). That would've been something. They're both sublime. I don't know how good or accurate the play is though. Will comment upon reading! Have you finished it yet, Dani1923?

[Dani1923]

No I haven’t even started trying to finish it! 😬😬 But since you’ve shown interest, I will finish it tomorrow and share my thoughts! 😀

[Dani1923]

Hannah,

Last night I finished reading the entire Peter and Alice play, and, in my opinion, it was bad! Finding Neverland level of bad!

I can’t list all of the inaccuracies and problems I have with this play because it would take too long, but I’ll list some:

* Saying George went to Oxford not Cambridge.
* Michael being the only main inspiration for Peter Pan not George too.
* Implying that Barrie met the first three boys when Peter was was a young boy and not just a baby.
* Barely mentioning George.
* Barely mentioning Sylvia.
* Barely mentioning Nico.
* Barrie writes to Arthur after his death not Sylvia.
* Made Barrie seem like he just used the boys as “bread and butter” and doesn’t really show that much how much he cared for them. Doesn’t show or tell how much the deaths of George and Michael affected him.
* I said this in my first post already, but the Barrie and Michael scene towards the end of play is super inaccurate and not true to the actual behaviors of both people!
* Peter mentions The Morgue, but the play takes place in 1932, and he definitely didn’t think about compiling that album yet!
* The play tries to show “bad sides” of Barrie, but they don’t mention Barrie sort of proposal to Sylvia after Arthur’s death or Jack’s negative feelings towards Barrie.
* Barrie forces a dying Arthur to say the boys are his now, which Barrie would never do!

I don’t know as much about the story behind Alice in Wonderland, but I knew enough to spot inaccuracies there too:

* Implying that Carroll was possibly a paedophile, which I believe he was not. Like Barrie, he was still friends with his child friends when they became adults.
* They only mention there being three Liddell sisters, but Alice was the fourth of ten children.
* Granted, it probably forever be a mystery why the friendship between Carroll and the Liddell family ended, but I don’t think it was for Carroll being attracted to Alice or to any of her other siblings.
* Peter and Alice talk about the deaths they’ve experienced in their lives but Alice doesn’t mention the death of her younger sister Edith when she was 22.

I also found the play unnecessarily dramatic a lot of the times, and there’s a lot of forced humor which me bores me and makes me cringe!

A lot of that forced humor comes from the characters of Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, and I’m not sure what the purpose was for having them there because they switch around with being a part of Peter and Alice’s mind, to commentating in character about what’s going on in a scene, it’s just all over the place!

It really is a shame that this is so bad! This play came out in 2013, and this website was around for many years already, so, at least for the Peter/Barrie side if the of the story, they had a lot to go off of for their research and making Peter’s side of the story accurate, but for whatever reason, John Logan just didn’t! Or at least it seems he didn’t do enough research by just reading this play!

So I didn’t like the play at all, but I still want to hear your opinion and other people’s opinion on the forum!

The play is only 70 pages long, so it would only take an hour or two to read depending on your reading speed.

[Hannah Grippo]

Yikes! I'm sorry I didn't respond. I've been busy with all kinds of life adventures, and never had a chance to read Peter and Alice this winter, but it looks like, by your review, that I should skip it! I'm sorry I won't be offering my opinion on the play, but this point you made really turned me off:

"Made Barrie seem like he just used the boys as “bread and butter” and doesn’t really show that much how much he cared for them. Doesn’t show or tell how much the deaths of George and Michael affected him."

That's horrible!

[Dani1923]

That’s okay I understand! Thank you for your response Hannah!

And yeah it was horrible! I really find it hard to understand why they made certain decisions! Did they not do the proper research, or did they just change stuff to make the story more dramatic and get a more dramatic reaction from the audience! Even though the actual story of Barrie and his boys is dramatic enough on its’ own and doesn’t need to be changed!

So yeah, unless you really want to read the script out of curiosity, just skip it!

[123throwaway]

I've read Peter and Alice some time ago, intrigued by Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw in anything Llewelyn Davies-related.

I enjoyed it well enough but it is very much fiction more than history. Right off the bat the premise for the play was a factoid I had never heard of before; when did Peter Davies and Alice Liddell ever meet? Other than that I hadn't noticed too many inaccuracies in the first 2/3rds of the play until towards the end. For example, Barrie's response to Michael's wanting to go to Paris was a little rougher than I would have expected from him and I don't know where John Logan could have gotten Peter cheating on Peggy from.

[Brutus]

The play is exactly that: a play. It's not meant to be a documentary, but just a totally fictionalised imagining of what the two people who inspired two of the greatest classics in English literature, would have said to each other. They did actually meet in 1932, when Alice was 80 and Peter was 30 (as recounted in Alice Liddell's autobiography) but it was a very brief meeting.

I saw the play at the time, and whilst being irritated by some of the interpretations of events and characters, and allegations, I thought the acting was superb, by both Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw. I also liked the fact that the Peter Pan portrayed on stage was closer to the original than the grimacing pixie-like Disney interpretation with its silly Robin Hood costume which now seems the lazy way of depicting him (even Spielberg gave him pointy ears in Hook). The play's Peter Pan made me think of Jean Forbes-Robertson's portrayal of the 20s & 30s.

So yes, good in parts - but also frustratingly annoying in others to anyone who knows the story.

[Dani1923]

Thanks for sharing your opinions!

Like Brutus said, I’m sure the acting was great as Dench and Whishaw are great actors, but I think even if I had seen the play live, the inaccurate facts probably would have pulled me out of the experience!

Also I personally thought the Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland, portrayed in the play was really annoying most of the time!

[paulsutherland]

Dear Barrie Team

I have been unable to make the link to the Peter and Alice Play Script work. Though I have read the reviews and comments on your J M Barrie website below and would probably agree to the general negative opinion of the play I would like to read it for myself. Could someone renew the link or send the pdf to my email paulsuther@hotmail.com ?

Kind Regard
Paul Sutherland

[Brutus]

The reason the PDF is no longer available is most probably because it was removed, for questions of copyright, as it was in breach of the copyright. The only way to get a copy of the script is through Amazon or other official online outlet - unless someone has kept a copy of the PDF and can email it to you!