FOUR STARS

 

Placing the Alice in Wonderland story in the context of the personal life of the girl, Alice Liddell, about whom and to whom it was told is not a bad idea. Indeed, it might seem an exceptionally good one for a production in the grounds of Christ Church, where her father was Dean and Lewis Carroll (aka the Rev Charles Ludwidge Dodgson) taught maths.

But the approach necessarily leads to an information overload in a show lasting just an hour, even in the hands of so talented a playwright as Matt Parvin, who recently became Royal Court Young Writer. Alice is peculiar enough in itself without another layer of confusion to contend with.

Sharing the shade of a walnut tree with me on Sunday sat an audience composed largely of foreign students. They must have gone away with a rum impression of Carroll’s work, to judge from what they saw performed in rollicking ensemble style by Oxford University Dramatic Society.

On the Edinburgh Fringe, where director Josie Mitchell’s production is bound, the ‘experimental’ tone is bound to appeal. They are used there to such conceits as a cast clad in white shirts and long-johns rolled up to the knee. Only Phoebe Hames’s Alice, in blue dress as in Tenniel’s famous illustrations, has a ‘real’ costume.

Festival goers should also savour the psychological dimension, for — surprise, surprise! — the dubious delight that Carroll took in the company of young girls is not overlooked — at least I think it isn’t.

The doubt arises because in Parvin’s play the cause for concern is shown to be the attentions of Alice’s uncle, rather than the story-teller and photographer Carroll.

Uncle tells Alice that their dealings should be “a secret kept from all the rest between yourself and me” (lines lifted from the verse read by the White Rabbit at the trial of the Jack of Hearts, which, as with other episodes in the book, is competently handled here).

Later, her mother says: “Your brother has told us what happened” — which is more then he, than anyone — has told us. Now unde is “no longer well enough to visit” and “needs help”.

Curiouser and curiouser.

 

Alice in Wonderland
Arcola Theatre, London, tomorrow and Saturday
arcolatheatre.com
Edinburgh Fringe:
C Nova, July 31-Aug 26
edfringe.com