Laura Wade doesn’t open her version of Alice in Wonderland with a riverbank and a rabbit hole. Instead, it opens at a funeral wake in Sheffield (perhaps not that surprising, since Wade grew up here). But her Alice (Ruby Bentall), isn’t a quaint inquisitive child either: she’s a distraught teenager, insular and confused by the death of her brother. Clearly, things have changed. The purists may throw their hands up in horror at Wade’s reinvention, but as a theatre production it injects a much needed narrative into the meandering lunacy of Lewis Carroll’s classic.
Disney candy-coloured backdrops are exempt from this version too. Croquet game aside, director Lyndsey Turner and designer Naomi Wilkinson have styled a dark and ramshackle setting for Alice to struggle with. Wade admitted she tried to avoid the episodic nature of the books (as with many interpretations, scenes from both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are mashed together), and in this she’s not entirely successful: in fact, Alice herself ponders if she’s in a computer game, jumping from one level to the next, meeting one character after another. But this, in itself, isn’t a problem, as it boldly presents each encounter.
And it’s hard to choose a favourite, as they’re all brilliant. As Alice, Bentall is engaging throughout, successfully capturing ‘teen angst’ without being annoying. The rest of the cast each play a multitude of characters, and really seem to enjoy themselves. As Tweedledee and Tweedledum, John Biddle and Oliver Burch strike a delightfully immature note inventing hilariously bad songs for each other.
Graham O’Mara’s Cheshire Cat unnervingly channels Russell Brand. John Marquez as Humpty-Dumpty riffs off Bentall superbly, their nonsensical interchanges really capturing the spirit of Carroll.
In an inspired twist, the hookah-smoking Caterpillar (Graham Turner) appears as immigration control, determined to work out if Alice has had her emotional baggage tampered with. And that’s without mentioning the White Rabbit (Jack Beale), the tea party and, of course, an entire ensemble of lobsters.
The narrative frame that Wade provides isn’t wholly original but it’s woven throughout the action very cleverly. And although it means the show is a little slow getting going, it importantly provides the story with a strong ending. Wade and Turner originally planned a bombastic song and dance finale, but they scrapped it last minute, devising a nuanced and balanced ending, with a lump-in-the-throat moment provided by Pippa Haywood (Green Wing) as Alice’s grieving mother. It’s a frabjous way to close a frabjous play.
Alice runs at The Crucible until Saturday 24 July: www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk
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