Alice The Musical

11.30 Performance

The arts style theatre was full to capacity with grandparents’, parents’, brothers and sisters and babies!  On this occasion being behind a woman eating the most enormous treacle tart and talking all through Act 1, and a small child and a toddler trying to climb into my seat throughout.... spoiled my experience. Not WTS’s fault in any way.

This was a lively production from a mixed age and ability theatre school.  Alice can be a difficult story to understand as the dialogue is somewhat old fashioned and make believe... fantastical would be a good description.  Two very good ‘Lewis Carroll’ narrators kept the amazing tale of Alice on track and we enjoyed her adventures in wonderland and the fantastical creatures she met.

The music was pleasant and the children sang well, accompanied by a very able band of musicians. 

The costumes were very good throughout and the principals’ outfits were outstanding.

The bright and colourful scenery was minimal but there were some lovely touches... 2 beautiful yellow roses, untamed Nasturtium leaves (one of which totally hid one Lewis Carroll from our view), lovely flowers on twigs and branches and an arrangement of playing cards that was interesting.

Sound was an occasional problem. Most principals were heard clearly, but with a large cast you cannot possibly mic them all. This play called for minor but important character lines to be clear and progress the story but because they had no mic’s they could not be heard.

Alice was portrayed beautifully in her blue and white costume; she gave a lovely performance with clear and audible dialogue and singing voice. She was troubled by having to get the bottle from the pocket in her apron, it wasn’t easy for her and it was obvious it bothered her on several occasions. It would have been much easier to have secreted the bottle on stage where she could have moved to find it when necessary.

There were good performances from all the characters but I offer a special mention to:-

The White Rabbit...a lovely costume and a very good character

The Mouse... a clear and talented performance

The Cheshire Cat... excellent makeup, very humorous with good timing

The Duchess... Excellent character...wonderful costume and her piglet baby was very funny (wherever did you find it!)

The Queen of Hearts... another wonderful costume and a strong and talented performance

The Mad Hatter a lovely clear performance and talented, can both sing and dance well

And finally The Caterpillar, who stole the show with his languid dialogue and comic timing, an excellent performance from a future ‘star’ performer.

I am certain the talent within WYT would have ensured another excellent performance at the 3.30pm Performance.

Thank you for inviting us, congratulations to the production team on all their hard work, good luck with exams and I look forward to your production next year. 

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