Alice In Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland - Pantomime

Written by Tom Whalley

Performed by Valley Arts and Social Society

At Hemyock Parish Hall on Friday 9th February at 7.30pm

Directed by Stuart Summers

Musical Direction by Zelda Gray

Choreography by Miki Hussey and Adele Bolt

 

The staging for this production was designed and constructed from scratch by the company and consisted of a large stage area, with flats stage right and left and backdrop, all beautifully painted with trees, flowers and large mushrooms/toadstools with added LED lighting on the backdrop of Alice in Wonderland. Up to 30 lights were rigged for the production and the company used individual mics for the first time. As I sat down, I could hear lovely ethereal music playing welcoming the audience, which was a sell-out, as were their previous performances.

The clock chimes as the story begins and we are greeted with two characters as the lights come up. The Knave of Hearts, a baddy through and through, dressed in a red and black waistcoat and black cape with an enormous black top hat decorated with playing cards. This actor relished the boos and hisses and with a strong Cornish accent he played nastiness with gusto as he plots to steal the Queen of Hearts tarts.  The Cheshire Cat with a huge painted grin, fur clad from top to bottom and gloves with huge nails attached, calmly filing them as she interacts with the Knave and other cast members. A natural performance with clever use of sarcasm.

Then we meet Alice, not yet in Wonderland, portrayed by an actor with incredible stage presence, vocally commanding and with excellent comic timing. The audience were in stitches throughout with the ad-libbing, interaction with the audience and overall performance of this character, who sang ‘What a wonderful world’ with real feeling.  The craziness of the white rabbit, dressed in white trousers, a white fur waistcoat and perfect white ears, worked well opposite Alice, again portrayed by an actor with superb stage presence who worked the audience well too. The local audience appreciated the plug for the local businesses too.

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee worked well together, very funny especially when asked their names and Tweedle Dum answered “Tweedle Dee”, genuinely forgetting the name or a good ad-lib, I’s not sure which but right for the character.

The cast all enter with ‘Welcome to Wonderland’ and include a rather absent minded but loveable Mad Hatter, a Caterpillar with the ability to move across stage, bottom up and slide, a meek dormouse with a sweet affectation, the March Hare with huge floppy ears and the ensemble characters dressed as sunflowers and bumble bees or playing cards. The Dame in this pantomime is The Duchess played by an exuberant actor with confidence and sass who stopped the show with his yellow bikini and sunhat in Act 2, we were screaming in the aisles!

All of the costumes were colourful, well made and perfectly suited to each character, well done indeed to the costume and makeup departments for their obvious hard work and attention to detail.

We meet the slow and careful Mock Turtle in Act 2, again very funny timing with lines like ‘anyone can cook roast beef but not everyone can pea soup’ and again a superb costume. 

As I previously mentioned the costumes were excellent and I especially liked the dancing lobsters with fabulous lobster hats and red outfits. One of the funniest scenes was Alice meeting Mock Turtle at the beach. They attempt to continue with the scene as different stuffed sea creatures are being added by the crew to the scene, thrown over the flats or brought on stage late but obviously late. Alice singing ‘Under the sea’ using her own words was hilariously funny too.

The Queen of Hearts is as pedantic as she should be, roaring her orders at everyone with the King cowering beside her.  This ‘Queen’ was played by an actor with good stage presence and confidence.

Comedy is essential; in all pantomimes. The use of ad-libbing, double-entendres and some risqué jokes were dispersed throughout this performance and it worked well. There were very clever touches added by the director, Stuart Summers such as backing singers in ‘I made you look’ dressed as air hostesses, Alice carrying off The Knave instead of the other way round and the Knave covering the ensemble daffodils in weed-killer.

A mixture of piano accompaniment and backing track music was used to great effect and each number was always the right length. 

The lighting was expertly created with a gobo lighting effect when Alice falls down the Rabbit Hole, the gloom of the dungeons and the use of pink lighting at the beginning. The sound engineer did well with the use of personal mics and even with all the ad-libbing going on did not miss a mic cue at any point.

Valley Arts and Social Society produced one of the funniest pantomimes I have seen in a while and I left the auditorium still giggling. I was given the warmest of welcomes from everyone involved and I witnessed a very happy audience as they left the hall. I can understand why this company meant so much to the late Janet Elworthy and they to her.

Well done to the cast, crew, front of house and production team for a very entertaining and humorous evening of fun.

Lyn Burgoyne (Noda Rep District 5) on behalf of Patricia Barclay.

 

 

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