ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Photos: Miles Davies
For anyone who grew up on a diet of Lewis Carroll there is always a fear that some clever clogs will do either one of two things or at worst both. There is the fear that someone will essentially mess with it, re-invent it, spoil something that for many of us is near perfection. Then there are those who will feel obliged to lard the thing with interpretation, psycho-babble, drug references and Freudian gobbledygook! Heaven forfend.
Yes, you can do the latter, but do it at home in your study or in a classroom. I want my Wonderland delivered full of the weird charm of childhood, of fantasy and fancy, of wit and whim. Brighton Little Theatre have done just that, once again in that tiny space with a huge cast they have pulled off the near impossible.
I’m going to start with the art, so many beautifully thoughtout and executed costumes, weird and wonderful humans and animals side by side, brightly coloured and cleverly conceived from a wonderful caterpillar, a foot dangling Humpty Dumpty to a chorus of hilarious dancing oysters, moments of creative genius.
The set was for the most part simplistic with some great projections and excellent staging, the Duchesses kitchen pure classic panto and the Mad Hatter’s tea party Tenniel fusion filled with fine detail, bottomless cups and glittery poured tea, simply delicious.
It’s a vast and sprawling tale but from childhood memory I think we got it all and certainly enough packed into a fast paced 90 minutes of story telling and song. Those songs are pretty good and weaving notes around Carroll’s complex rhymes is no easy task for even the most accomplished of composers.
So finally I get to the company and apologise to those I do mention by name, here we go…
Polly Jones is a perfect Alice and I mean perfect in every sense, inquisitive, no fool and yet at times naive, and she looks the part too. It’s a slab of exacting text and she is word and note perfect. Laurits Bjerrum, a name that Carrol might easily have created, makes a delightful and energetic White Rabbit bounding through the audience, fearful of being late and making great fun from his bugle and the deliberately late sound cues. Frankie Knight’s imperious Queen Of Hearts is scary in the right measure and her entourage equally so, one has to love silly baddies.
Joseph Bentley is a marvellous Mad Hatter, twisting his words and his body too great comic effect and Myles Locke’s impetuous March Hare adds further comic presence to perhaps the best known scene from the whole with the gentle Dormouse dealing with the chaos with aplomb, well played by Robyn Ives.
Into this we get the funniest ever Caterpillar, Welsh no less and milking every vowel and consonant to brilliant effect without playing on that whole drug theme. Carrol may well have meant it but in a confection created for kids do we need it, I think not.
This was the comedy highlight of an evening filled with comedy cameos, funny Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with a great musical number and a Humpty Dumpty that is irresistibly charming.
My favourite scene from the book has always been the cook, the Duchess and the baby and casting Leigh Ward as a Duchess in the guise of pantomime dame gave me such a warm feeling of nostalgia. I am a huge fan of pantomime and I despise the woke whitewashing of the genre, bring back dames I say and principal boys too for that matter. It’s not gender politics, it’s cultural history! Anyway, this nod to trad panto cheered my old bones
My only real caveat is that a nicely played Cheshire Cat fell foul of tech, how I wish it had been cleverly conceived live, like Humpty Dumpty, and not projected, a tiny quibble that does not detract from a very funny performance from the lip-gloss wielding Ingrid Mort.
Brainerd Duffield’s adaptation is well wrought and loyal and Tina Sitko’s direction is sharp and confident and aided by Nettie Sheridan. This is the pure spirit of what a Christmas show should be, no soap stars, no shabby innuendo or silly political satire, just the joy of childhood fantasy and fun.
Andrew Kay
15 December
Brighton Little Theatre
Rating:
