Wonderland

Where do you start? This is the most extraordinary show – in two ways. Let’s start with extraordinarily good, what a spectacularly talented cast. Kerry Ellis has a magnificent voice, truly great. Dave Willetts the same. Natalie McQueen is manically mad as the hatter with a huge voice and animated face and Kayi Ushe breathes real life into proceedings as the caterpillar, by far the best moment of theatre in the whole show. Add to this Wendi Peters who is imperiously magnificent as the Queen of Hearts and can certainly sing, my how she can sing. The company are good, very good… then why waste them on such an ill conceived and poorly realised piece of nonsense that surely has Lewis Carroll spinning in his own rabbit hole. Yes, I thought it was extraordinarily bad. There are undoubtedly some good numbers but with such a weak book there is no hope that a string of power ballads can save the day, far from it. And why so much much re-invention, I note that the cat was not referred to as the Cheshire Cat but to drop in a Louis Spence like feline was mystifying to say the least. I could cope with a female hatter, but question why when the more traditional characters work so well. Finally the volume, the entire show was delivered at top volume, deafeningly so. Is the director deaf, because we the audience, for the most part were not? Well not until after the show and suffering lines delivered in soaring decibels, so loud that the lyrical content was for the most part lost. So there it is, a stage filled with talent drowning in show that is weak on story and submerged in noise.

30 May

Theatre Royal Brighton

Andrew Kay

Rating: