Alice: Return to Wonderland review – a wonderfully eccentric new rabbit hole to go down
Sherman theatre, CardiffAlice is a boring grownup at the start of this intelligent and catchy Christmas musical – then she’s whisked off to Wonderland againWhat has happened to Alice? Why...
By Arifa Akbar · The Guardian Culture
Sherman theatre, Cardiff Alice is a boring grownup at the start of this intelligent and catchy Christmas musical – then she’s whisked off to Wonderland again What has happened to Alice? Why is she so grumpy and where is her Alice band? The Alice (Elian Mai West) before us, in a grey skirt suit, is behaving like a thoroughly boring grownup. Then again, she is no longer in Wonderland: this is postwar Cardiff and she is a single mother facing up to some serious issues: a bombed out home, a husband lost to war and a free-spirited daughter, Carys (Mari Fflur), on the brink of adulthood, who wants to remain a child, and play. All the wonder has left Alice Liddell (who has the full name of the child-friend on whom Lewis Carroll may have based his books ). She is a town planner for Cardiff council, heading up an unpopular project to turn a street on which children play into a multistorey car park. But the Queen of Hearts, the tyrant ruler of Wonderland, wants a rematch to a croquet game. So the White Rabbit (Keiron Self) skitters into Alice’s life and sweeps her back into a Wonderland populated by characters of the classic tale. All are given new storylines, rather like the errant fairytale cast of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Continue reading...