Charles Dodgson, Oxford don, obsessed with mathematics, logic and photographing little girls, published the most famous children’s book in 1865. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has been staged, filmed, televised and endlessly analysed ever since.
Damon Albarn, Moira Buffini and Rufus Norris use the novel as a springboard for their digital version which is aimed at teenagers who are on their smart phones texting and on-line playing computer games. Audiences brought up on Lewis Carroll’s text and John Tenniel’s drawings are liable to be very disappointed.
wonder.land had its premiere in Manchester in July and the present production is based on the response of the Manchester school kids to that try-out. The show still remains a work in progress. Alice (Lois Chimimba) is a child of mixed race. Her parents are separated. She’s in trouble at school, bullied by the girls and the headmistress. The real world is grey and shabby. Her imagined world is surreal and garish.
It’s Rufus Norris’s production, Rae Smith’s set, the computer graphics and projections by 59 Productions, plus the weird costumes by Katrina Lindsay and the strong language that audiences will come out of the theatre talking about. The Caterpillar’s body is wittily played by a number of actors. The performance which stands out is Anna Francolini’s amusing caricature of the headmistress; and most parents are going to side with her when she confiscates Alice’s smartphone.