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December 2006  Social Event - A trip to the Theatre

On a wintry December Friday night, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s lights were a welcoming sight as we all converged there to see their production of Alice in Wonderland.  The Rep is a smaller and more personal venue than either the refurbished Hippodrome or the more traditional Alex, encouraging the audience to feel closer and more involved with the production.

Alice was played by an actress whom you would have believed was a mere girl.  She managed to convey the youth and curiosity portrayed by the character.  I’m sure everyone is familiar with the storyline – Whilst Alice is on a picnic the white rabbit pops up pricking Alice ’s curiosity.  She follows him and enters a world of wonder, nonsense and mayhem.  When Alice stumbles upon various doors and food and drink with instructions to eat and drink, she finds herself in a predicament.  She is too big to go through the door and too small to obtain the key to go through the door.  She has her fill of the food and drink and with wonders of scenery she appears to grow to giant proportions and then shrink to the size of a mouse whilst enthralling the audience with the clever illusion. 

The experience all becomes too much for the little girl and she cries, however, as she is so big she creates a sea of tears and meets various creatures in the sea. 

When she is no longer proportionally challenged, she goes through the door to the wondrous world of the royal pack of cards.  The costumes become elaborate with vibrant colours.  Alice finds the footsoldiers (all cards) painting the roses red as per the instructions of the Queen of Hearts, a tyrannical queen with a penchant for beheading and a voice to shatter glass from 100 metres!  A game of croquet is played.  As Alice narrowly escapes, pretty, blonde head still intact, she partakes of refreshment with the Madhatter’s crew.  The Cheshire Cat grins his way through the production either in person or cleverly done via projection or TV.  As matters start to get a little hairy in wonderland Alice wakes up and finds herself where she began, lying on the lawn having her picnic – was it all a dream?

As you would expect in a musical production, every little event sparks a song and the singing was excellent.  The costumes and scenery were elaborate and cleverly displayed different perspectives.  Whilst we left the theatre a little confused as to the whole meaning of the story, the fantastic atmosphere of the production left you feeling it a thoroughly enjoyable event.