Finding Neverland, Curve, Leicester, review Leicester is experiencing a freak shower of Tinseltown glamour. The Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax, has alighted on that fancy box of tricks, Curve, in which to unveil his first major theatrical project: a £7 million musical version of his hit 2004 film about JM Barrie and the genesis of Peter Pan. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, who co-starred as Barrie and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies - the widowed mother whose young sons inspired the Scottish writer to pen the children's classic - weren't alas on hand for the premiere. Maybe they'll drop in further down the line: there's talk of a West End transfer and Broadway run. Given Weinstein's legendary determination, Finding Neverland might go on to greater things. There'll be interest in seeing this whatever sniffy critics - who come in for multiple digs during the show - may say. Yet there's no getting round it: the evening - which spends much time celebrating the value of artistic courage - rarely soars above the realms of the so-so. The problem is that if you know anything much about how Peter Pan came to be, especially if you've seen the more picturesque film, you'll know the story ponderously laid out here. Allan Knee (book), lyricist Michael Korie and composer Scott Frankel accentuate the yearning between James and Sylvia, frustrated by Edwardian propriety and terminal illness. But they don't dig especially deep, and shy away from confronting the obsessive nature of Barrie's devotion to the boys, also missing the chance to show them in later age. There's not enough for adults to chew on, and apart from a few scenes in which fantasy elements intrude and the cute sight of a panting St Bernard as Porthos, there's precious little for children too. Director Rob Ashford has cast well in Julian Ovenden and Rosalie Craig as the lost Barrie and his real-life "Wendy" (with Clare Foster good as his sidelined wife) but the cast are powering through forgettable songs that sound as though they washed up from other musicals. Some of the lyrics ("Don't fight it, write it James!," chorus the creativity-spurring pirates) should be made to walk the plank. The show flies, literally, at the end when Barrie and his boys - sweetly served on the opening night by Harry Polden, Worrall Courtney, Josh Swinney and Connor Fitzgerald - rise up together to sweep over London but elsewhere, seemingly bound for nowheresville, it appears simply to be treading vacant air. Until Oct 18.