J.M. Barrie’s enduring idea of 'the little boy who never grew up’ is an appealing fantasy of eternal innocence.

But the truth is darker than that.

James Barrie’s older brother David perished in an ice-skating accident when J.M. was only six years old. He grew up trying to keep his brother’s memory alive, going so far as dressing in his clothes and impersonating him, to try and comfort their grieving mother. His traumatised efforts to change the past trickled into his writings, which are full of characters miraculously getting a chance to have their time again. The ‘Lost Boys’ of Peter Pan are all cot-death victims who are magically restored to life. In his greatest play, The Admirable Crichton, a butler becomes the leader of his employers when they are cast away on a desert island. And in Dear Brutus a group of middle-class English country-house guests wander into an enchanted forest that shows them how their lives might have been if they’d had a second chance.

It's poignant to see the Studio Theatre Club mounting a J.M. Barrie play. Michael Llewelyn Davies, one of the original ‘Lost Boys’ who inspired Peter Pan, drowned not three miles from the Abingdon Unicorn Theatre.

Dear Brutus was a hit when it came out in 1917, and it’s easy to see why the idea of turning back time and making different choices might appeal to audiences ravaged by three years of war. But the play itself is a hesitant affair, stumbling through its conceits like its characters stumbling through the forest. Jack Purdie, a philanderer in the ‘real’ world, turns out be a philanderer in the magic wood too. Matey the Butler, who pilfers guests’ valuables in normal life, is an equally dishonest banker in fantasy land. Will Dearth, an alcoholic, failed painter, is, unimaginatively, just a non-alcoholic painter in the forest. When they return to the Edwardian living room of real life at the end it’s hard to see quite what they’ve learned from the experience. Compared with, say, the shattering soul-baring induced by the visit of the supernatural Inspector in An Inspector Calls, their adventure creates hardly a ripple of regret. The one major difference between the land of second chances and reality is the presence, in the forest, of the painter Dearth’s daughter, Margaret. She does not appear in ‘real’ life, and it’s never explained why she was present in the forest. The conclusion I draw is that she is another ‘lost boy’, a child who died: J.M. Barrie invoking his brother’s spirit yet again. That would be touching, but the scene between Margaret and her father is by far the longest in the play, and seriously outstays its welcome.

There are also hints of Bacchanalia in the forest. The elderly gentleman, Peter Coade, dances through the trees with a pan-pipe. But again, the idea is undeveloped, and stops short of causing any real impact. It’s a pity. The idea of some sort of drawing-room-based, primitive monster-god takeover is dangled before our hungry eyes, like Oscar Wilde meeting H.P. Lovecraft, and then whipped away, leaving only mild perturbation.

Even the title feels like a missed opportunity. Dear Brutus refers to Cassius’s line in Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves". It ties the play to human failings rather than supernatural solicitings. But the real Shakespearean antecedents of Dear Brutus are As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, both referred to extensively in the play, and both visions of forests changing the lives of their characters.

The actors of STC grapple gamely with the limitations of the material, but I’m afraid it’s a losing battle. The magic of the play is elusive at best, and this production doesn’t capture it. Instead it is characterised by a pervasive quietness. The performers feel cabined, cribbed and confined. Even the music is strangely subdued. It feels like a production that is nervous of offending anybody. That may well be a reflection of the weaknesses in Barrie’s source material, but it means that this is a play that needs to be turned up to eleven in order to succeed, not muted. Everybody is much too polite to everybody else, which makes little sense when other characters respond as if they’ve been pushed beyond endurance.

From a directorial perspective, I felt this play was approached like an Agatha Christie Mousetrap with added weirdness, when it could have done with a bit more of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem.

Having said that, it did contain the line "The svelteness of you! Why are you so svelte?", which I plan to use myself at the earliest opportunity.

Thanks to Studio Theatre Club, I am elated to have happened upon Dear Brutus, a lesser known J.M. Barrie (of Peter Pan fame) play. Familiar themes of transportation to fantastical worlds and the preoccupation with youthful desires are prevalent, and gleefully exposed, while also being grounded in the reality of adulthood and the consequences of our actions. Directed by Matt Kirk, the cast and crew revel in this diversity, gifting the audience a startlingly nuanced, merry and magnetic performance, never shying away from the prevailing attitudes of the era in which the play was written: 1917, when women were still viewed as inferior, while charging ahead in the fight for equality.

Dear Brutus is heavily influenced by Shakespeare, not simply in name (which is a snippet of text from Julius Caesar) but most notably, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Both plays take place on the same day, with much of the action situated in a magical woodland. The role of Puck is emulated by the elderly, oddly loveable Lob, with a character in the play even referring to him as “rather like what Puck might have grown into if he had forgotten to die”. The action begins in Lob’s house, where a group of people have been invited to spend Midsummer’s Night with him. Lob deviously transports them to an enchanted forest which appears behind his garden once a year. This grove is capable of showing individuals an alternative path their lives may have taken before they are drawn back to reality at the dawn of Midsummer’s Day. It is peppered with an exuberant mix of cheery, wistful dialogue, strength and charm along with tenable exposition of varying regrets, sorrows and anger.

Designed by Francesca Richards, the stage setting in Lob’s home is minimalist which enhances the ethereality of the woodland. The curtain covering an alcove at the rear of the stage is pulled back to reveal tree trunks constructed with real branches. A towering silver birch appears during a scene change, complete with glittering canopy and superbly realistic root detail. Lob waltzes in, giggling while throwing leaves, which litter the ground like confetti for the rest of the play.

Lighting and sound are consistently unobtrusive throughout the production. In the safety of Lob’s house a natural glow fills the stage, whereas in the wood, slightly dimmed multicoloured lights pool on the set, complimented by the projection of a moon and foliage on one of the walls. Sound is evocative, with subtle birdsong conjuring the atmosphere, and the occasional opportune song infused during scene changes.

Lob, the mysteriously magical old man (who claims to be a relic of Merry England) is delivered with memorably mischievous ease by Mike MacDonald, despite the relative absence of vocal dialogue. Anna Wilson displays an enviable range in her performance as the bitter, fierce, Alice Dearth. Her insults and jibes are venomously cutting, contrasting her woodland disharmony and dialect. Alice’s husband Will Dearth is played by Rory Morrison, whose port-soaked, dispirited affect is credibly conveyed and polarised by his alternate reality, where the love of his “might-have-been” daughter is truly transformative. The audience is pulled into Dearth’s fantasy life through Morrison’s emotive performance, and mourns its loss with him. Sreya Rao is utterly engaging as Margaret Dearth, who only exists in her father’s version of the eerie forest. Her youth and carefree spirit is a joy to see, which heightens the pain of knowing that she does not exist outside of the magical realm, and Sreya deftly delivers her final lines with truly palpable misery.

Jamie Mortimer is almost aggravatingly authentic as the serial philanderer, Jack Purdie. We are faced with a cleverly pathetic, simpering vision of a man in the play’s final act following his earlier antics. Mabel Purdie, Jack’s wife, is played by Jamie’s actual wife, Elena Mortimer! She is simultaneously confrontational of, and resigned to Jack’s behaviour, dexterously shifting to devotion while in the wood. Debs McKenna takes on the role of Jack’s mistress, Joanna. Her charisma is engaging throughout the play, with both Debs and Elena particularly shining during their interactions with each other.

Stephen Briggs presents the self-confessed “lazy” old gent, Mr Coade. His gentle allure and affability is infectious, I delighted in watching him dance through the woods in a shockingly vibrant outfit, clutching a penny whistle wrapped in vines; many a chuckle could be heard rippling through the audience whenever he appeared. In her first appearance with STC, Helen Keely convincingly depicted the unassuming, kindly nature of sweet-faced Mrs Coade, even amongst the confusion following the woodland escapade.

Matey, Lob’s thieving butler is sympathetically portrayed by Ross McGookin, whose amusing facial expressions enhance the action. The posh, upper-class Lady Caroline Laney is rendered with disdainful poise by Kat Steiner.

Lob is a mismatched, multicoloured feast for the eyes in red tasselled smoking cap, long velveteen jacket (featuring a print reminiscent of William Morris’ Strawberry Thief), bright striped waistcoat, yellow tartan trousers and sparkly slip-on flat shoes. The ladies all wear different colours & styles of fine dresses, shoes and accessories, matching their personalities. Alice Dearth’s fiery personality jumps out through red clothes which are perfectly presented in Lob’s house, but filthy and torn in the woods where she finds her alternative reality far inferior to the real life (and husband) she seems to despise. Joanna and Mabel appear to swap dresses when entering the wood, highlighting their interchangeability as viewed through Jack Purdie’s eyes. In Lob’s house the men of the troupe all wear different suits or smart jackets, again; their styles appear in alignment with their temperaments. Will Dearth wears a dishevelled grey suit, ill-fitting waistcoat and unfastened red bow tie with floppy, unkempt hair. He emerges in the wood a much smarter individual when accompanied by the apparition of his magical daughter, whose eyes are ringed with stars.

You’d be crazy not to seize the unique chance to catch this winsomely weird play delivered by an incredible cast! There are still tickets available for the rest of the run. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any bewitching woodlands in which we can actually explore the road not taken, so don’t let this become a missed opportunity!