Before Alice became Alice in Wonderland, she was simply Alice in Upper-Class-Victorian-Oxfordland, a stiflingly boring place to be, full of mean classmates, stressed governesses, barmy etiquette teachers and shouty parents. To make matters worse, young Alice can’t even dream herself away from the monotony because she has a complete lack of imagination. That is until her eccentric uncle arrives and gives her a book that slowly begins to unlock the hidden potential of her mind, gradually transforming these unlikable people into the characters we all know and love. It’s a good premise, but sadly this production fails to live up to its potential.
The whole show felt rushed and disorderly, with characters coming and going so often it was impossible to keep track of who was who. When watching a prequel to such a classic novel, half the fun is trying to work out who will turn into the character you already know, but in Before Wonderland there wasn’t enough time for the audience to take everything in, let alone guess at who could be who. The final scene, in which the entire cast convenes on stage as the characters they would be in Alice In Wonderland, should have been the ‘Aha!’ moment of the piece, but yet again it was gone before the audience got a chance to fully appreciate it. There are some great speeches in the nonsense style Lewis Carroll championed, but these too were so rushed they became nothing but garbled monologues. Overall, the production felt like it lacked focus, as if some vital component that would have brought the whole thing together was absent.
This is a shame as there were some moments of brilliance hiding amongst all the commotion. The use of flashing lights and glowing ribbon to represent the inner workings of the mind was a nice piece of staging and a character’s transformation into the Caterpillar through the clever use of a child’s canvas tunnel was also well done. The two actresses who played Alice’s ghastly etiquette teachers were a highlight of the show, as was the line “Off to your bed!” as shouted by Alice’s mother, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the Queen of Hearts. Unfortunately however, such moments were not enough to turn the show around and I left the theatre rather wishing I had left Alice in Wonderland where she belongs.
