Ross Petty takes final flight in Canada’s most successful holiday pantomime

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• Title: Peter’s Final Flight: The PAN-Tastical Family Musical
• Written by: Matt Murray
• Director: Tracey Flye
• Actors: Alex Wierzbicki, Stephanie Sy, Dan Chameroy, Ross Petty
• Company: Ross Petty Productions in association with Crow’s Theatre
• Venue: Elgin Theatre
• City: Toronto
• Run: To Jan. 7, 2023

After a quarter of a century, give or take, Ross Petty is hanging up his hat and hook as producer and star villain of Canada’s most successful, long-running, large-scale holiday pantomime.

Peter’s Final Flight: The PAN-tastical Family Musical is his team’s final fractured fairy tale to take the stage at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre in the Christmas-plus season. Writer Matt Murray has penned a new panto, around pop and rock hits, specifically designed to bring closure to Ross Petty Productions’ most loyal audience.

While families of fans, including those who have perhaps let the tradition lapse since the days the shows starring the likes of Mr. Dressup and Kurt Browning were also turned into TV specials, will enjoy this trip to the theatre to say goodbye for good, new audiences just coming in might be a little perplexed by how self-referential (and self-reverential) this particular edition is.

Peter’s Final Flight kicks off with the evening’s funniest interpolation of a popular song into a classic Peter Pan plot – as we watch the Darling children being tucked into bed and their parents sing a lullaby version of Metallica’s Enter Sandman (with its “off to never never land” refrain.)

But it turns out that what we are watching is actually a rehearsal for a fictional Peter Pan production starring a Toronto actor named Peter (Alex Wierzbicki) and produced by Ross Petty (played by Petty).

Soon enough, the voice of director Tracey Flye is heard calling a break – and Peter’s co-star Erika (Stephanie Sy) heads off stage to shoot some selfies to feed her online following.

It’s at this point that the fairy Plumbum (Dan Chameroy, back for the umpteenth time in this ridiculous role) flies in and mistakes Peter, the actor, for the real Peter Pan. She spirits him away to the actual Neverland where he meets the Lost Boys in search of a leader.

This lengthy elaborate set-up is a bit of a slog – with an avalanche of industry in-jokes that would have been more amusing meted out in a more measured fashion.

But once all the exposition is done and Erika is somehow is summoned to Neverland too, the show can really kick off.

Peter and Erika must use their panto-level acting skills to help Plumbum stop Helga Hook (Sara-Jeanne Hosie) and her sidekick Smee (Eddie Glen) from destroying The Heart of Neverland. This involves a treasure hunt that allows for a series of scenes set in magical environs designed to please adults and children watching on different levels.

A highlight involves vain mermaids dubbed the Karsplashians – funny and full-voiced ensemble members Mariah Campos, Bonnie Jordan and Conor Scully – who sing Ariana Grande’s Greedy (a tune co-written by Max Martin that didn’t quite make the cut for & Juliet).

This number involves undulating underwater choreography by Flye and Jennifer Mote, truly delightful costumes by Ming Wong, and fine integration of sets and colourful projections by designers Michael Gianfrancesco and Cameron Davis.

Bob Foster, music director for Come From Away in Canada, is back in the orchestra pit, leading a tight seven-piece band through his own orchestrations of songs by artists from Kelly Clarkson to Steve Perry.

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Wierzbicki, until recently host of The Zone on YTV, and Sy, a very smooth musical theatre performer, pitch their performances at the kiddos – and, while they both are likeable, their ability to connect as hero and heroine is a little hampered by the show-within-a-show construct.

The adult-oriented shtick is really in the foreground this year. Chameroy vamps more than ever as Plumbum, testing of the limits of what can be alluded to in a family show, while Hosie, promoted to chief villain back in 2016, has really found her groove in eliciting audience jeers.

Flashbacks allow Petty to take the stage as Helga’s dearly departed husband Captain Hook and get booed one last time. But the show’s meta-pantomime structure is also built to climax in a sentimental moment that, opening night, garnered an in-show standing ovation for Petty as Petty.

I know I’m supposed to use this occasion to praise the producer for all the joy he’s brought to Toronto over the past 27 years – but, to be honest, I’m experiencing abandonment issues and I kind of resent him for shutting down just as I have a kid of my own old enough to take.

When Petty first retired from the stage to solely produce, I thought he was stepping out of the spotlight so the enterprise might eventually continue on without him. When Crow’s Theatre started coming on “in association” as producer, I had hoped a succession plan was being put into place.

But the baton passed to Petty in the 1990s by British producer Paul Elliott has now been dropped – and it will up to other enterprising artists to build something form scratch if Toronto’s biggest stages are not to once again be swamped by touring productions starring Brits or Americans in December.

PS: My three-year-old said he liked “everything” about Peter’s Final Flight and his favourite characters were “all of them.” So much for the apple not falling far from the tree.