NORTHERN Ballet Theatre (NBT) is wont to innovate, yet nothing should detract from the magic of dance, and Peter Pan gilds the NBT lily more than ever before in adding to the base element of choreography.

Inevitably, there is plenty of flying in harnesses, as Peter Pan (Christian Broomhall) leads the Darling children to Neverland. We are used to leaping in dance, but now, in artistic director David Nixon's world premiere, the dancers fly through the air with the aid of wire, and so the magic is more mechanical, courtesy of Flying By Foy. Once airborne, puckish Broomhall, Pippa Moore's sweet Wendy Darling, Christopher Hinton-Lewis's John and Simon Kidd's Michael are nevertheless a striking sight, cast high into the Grand Theatre night air, travelling from London to Neverland as the star-lit night sky changes behind them.

On these adventures, they are joined by gulls and butterflies, borne on sticks by puppeteers in travel scenes not dissimilar to pantomime transformations (albeit without the ultraviolet lighting that works so effectively in panto).

Once the shock of the new has worn off - the air traffic show cannot entertain forever - other facets must come to the fore. Or, rather, another shock of the new: Tinker Bell appears not as a ball of light or a sprite, but as a blue-eyed, shock-haired tiny puppet, manipulated by a woman in black, clumpy shoes and what appears to be a bee keeper's protective headgear (Hannah Bateman). This is novel, and one of the artistic devices that defines this as a children's show.

More humour in the manner of the miniature cannon-firing pirate galleon tiny ship and the crocodile's tail-swishing entry would be welcome. Jonathan Ollivier's Hook out-dances all around as usual in his brief flurries, but his villainy could be more swaggering, and the fight scenes are limp.

Theatre - wordless save for Pan's sudden invocation to believe in fairies - dominates over classical dance, with Moore and Broomhall restricted to one central pas de deux. Consequently, Stephen Warbeck's first ballet score is not tested to the full.

Nixon's Peter Pan hits the heights in the air, less so on the ground.

Updated: 11:27 Tuesday, December 21, 2004