ABSTRACT
Peter Pan has proved itself to be versatile drama. The play is regularly adapted, but that is not simply because its author, James Matthew Barrie, created a new fairy tale that brought pleasure to its audiences. One crucial part of J. M. Barrie’s life that cannot be neglected when thinking about Peter Pan is the sustained relationship J. M. Barrie forged in the late 1890s with the Llewellyn Davies family. In 2016 the National Theatre, in a co-production with Bristol Old Vic authored ‘by J. M. Barrie and the Companies’, altered conventional casting and doubling practices for the play, with the actor playing Mrs. Darling also playing Captain Hook. Prose writing continued as well, but it is Peter Pan that has kept Barrie’s name a familiar one for audiences of theatre and film. Friendship with the family resulted in regular meetings between J. M. Barrie and initially two, but eventually all five of the Llewellyn Davies boys in Kensington Gardens.
