Alice in Wonderland

The lovely Walled Garden at Brandon Country Park lent itself well to this promenade production by Shoestring Theatre of Alice in Wonderland performed entirely in verse by a young cast. 

The Storyteller Denise Maxim was our guide and led us to Alice’s garden.  Things got off to a good start when a wonderful White Rabbit, played well by Mia McDonald entered to wake Alice and whisk her down the rabbit hole.  From then on things got “curious-er” and “curious-er” as we followed Alice on her adventures.

First we joined the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with Leah Sanders absolutely splendid as the Mad Hatter, Kaitlyn Hunt (March Hare) and Melanie Attwood (Dormouse) all enjoying a veritable feast at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Then on we went only to be accosted by Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee (Abbie Harrington and Georgina Forster) who warned us about the Queen of Hearts.

We were then treated to two very fine performance from Amy Clifton as the Queen of Hearts and Kacy Harrington as Alice, firstly playing croquet (those poor hedgehogs and flamingoes!) and then in the court.  These scenes were very amusing with the only gentleman of the cast Finlay Mead as the Guard being enthusiastically threatening with a very large axe. He was only too prepared to chop off the head of the Knave of Hearts played by Abby Bowyer.  The cast was completed by Sarah Harrington (The Clock & a Footman).  On we went to watch Alice playing chess but unfortunately I did feel the chess match was a bit rushed probably because it had begun to rain at that point and there was a deal of movement in the ’crowd’ which must have been off-putting.

The four principals Alice, the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit I thought were extremely good.  I was impressed with the delivery of the Queen and especially the focus and total involvement of the Mad Hatter, who reacted well in the court scene even when no dialogue was involved. My comments, however, should take nothing away from the performance of any other members of the cast who all did their part and worked so well as a team.  

I would like to draw attention to delivery of dialogue.  Projection is key but everyone, young people and grown-ups all speak faster then they believe they do and it is important we can hear and follow what is being said.  An actor puts in a lot of work learning lines, rehearsing and becoming familiar with the play.  By the time it gets to performance an actor knows the play inside out but the audience only hears it once so your hard work is wasted if an audience cannot appreciate it because they cannot hear what is being said or it is being said too fast.  

This script threw up a big challenge as everything was in rhyme and it is not as easy as some may think to learn.  Therefore once learnt care should be taken so that the rhythm of the words does not tempt an actor to deliver them too quickly. All in all though I thought everyone in the cast did very well particularly surrounded as they were by the audience.  

Excellent and imaginative use was made of the areas in the garden.  The properties, costumes and masks were outstanding.  Technically there was no requirement for lighting effects and the one sound effect was appropriate and on cue.  One must not forget either the support from what was probably a large number of people working unseen to keep things running smoothly. 

Director Joanne Perry should be justly proud of her cast and support team. I am sure the young actors learnt a lot from performing not only in the open air but in the different locations in the garden which is quite difficult to do after rehearsing in an enclosed space.  

I enjoyed it immensely.

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