Britain did not invite Germany into Norway

Did Britain want Germany to occupy Norway and spread the war to peripheral theatres where German forces could be worn down?

No; those campaigns imposed unwanted commitments, and a Napoleonic peripheral-war model does not fit Germany's geography or Britain's Second World War strategy.

Britain preferred a contained war and fought in North Africa and Greece because Italy entered the conflict, not because London wanted to scatter its own forces. Without the Mediterranean burden, the Royal Navy could concentrate more battleships and escorts against Germany; Napoleonic peripheral strategy is a poor analogy because 1930s Germany lacked France's worldwide imperial periphery.