OBSERVER: Peter Pan – A Twinkle In Time
The most famous pre-teen boy in history, “apart from Macauley Culkin and not including the 30-somethings masquerading as children from Stranger Things”, is suffering from an existential crisis.
Fresh off a sold-out season of #Swifttok at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Peter Pan: A Twinkle in Time is a new, equally silly one-man comedy act by Dean Robinson.
Peter Pan, the boy who won’t grow up, accidentally grew up.
Flashing green Lycra leggings, a green crushed velvet tunic, and Crocs, Peter Pan has left Neverland with a dream and ended up on the mean streets of St Kilda, well, the gentrified streets of middle-class Australia.
What’s making him all angsty?
He’s losing his Twink-ness.
A Twink is a young, slim, boyish-looking gay male, youthful and carefree, think Timotheé Chalamet or Troye Sivan.
Twink Death means losing that youthful aesthetic, a kind of social death, hence the existential dread over the “lost boy” of his youth.
He needs to get back into the Twink swing, and binge-watching Emily in Paris is the “perfect amount of stupid to get you in the Twink mood”.
A little rough to start, the show soon picks up.
Robinson delivers comedy at a fast, staccato pace. Blink, and you’ll miss them.
Costume changes and songs add to the silliness.
Audience members are plucked from relative obscurity to serve as brief celebrities under the spotlight during a game show naming gay icons.
Finally, the eternal boy realises that he belongs in the world of pirates, fairies, and lost boys with his bestie, Tinker Bell, in Neverland.
The show ends with a rendition of the Cher anthem for all aging Twinks, If I Could Turn Back Time.
Review by Kathryn Keeble