The White Rabbit nearly bounded off with the show. Not quite, as there was no weak link in the five-strong cast of Shakespeare North’s festive reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. But the rabbit, normally acted by Noah Olaoye but for this performance played by understudy Tia Larsen, a young actor who has worked at the theatre as a visitor experience assistant since its opening in 2022, was the standout character in Nick Lane’s sequel to the Lewis Caroll classic.
This was no standard bunny. This was a fashion-conscious rabbit with an only slightly ludicrous French accent and strong comic timing. But then this is no ordinary Alice. In this version, with its original score and lyrics by Simon Slater, our heroine (Helen Carter) is now a harassed mum, shopping with two whiny children on Christmas Eve, her memories of magical childhood adventures in Wonderland largely displaced by the more prosaic matter of whether her kid needs to wee.
This being Shakespeare North, a playhouse firmly rooted in its geography, all this is happening in Prescot. It is outside Chicken Barbeque, therefore, that Alice catches her first glimpse of the aforementioned bunny, and soon she is back down the rabbit hole on a mission to find her way home.
Along the way, she encounters most of Carroll’s main protagonists; an acrobatic and suitably zany Mad Hatter (Milton Lopes), the Cheshire Cat (Kelise Gordon-Harrison) reimagined as a cheesy game show host (“No drinkie, no shrinkie!”) and Caterpillar, also played by Larsen, whose arrival midway through the first half is the point at which this show really gets into its stride.
The evil Duchess (Martha Godber), sister to the original Queen, channels Narnia’s White Witch in cancelling Christmas, but also has flashes of the modern populist, promising to “Get Wonderland Done” while blocking up the rabbit holes to keep out immigrant “outlanders” and “Make Wonderland Great Again”.
All of which is to say, don’t think too hard about the plot. It is paper-thin, and the conclusion well-worn. But narrative coherence was never really the point of Alice, and what we have instead is a series of mostly engaging and witty set pieces, performed with verve by a likeable cast. Sascha Gilmour’s quirky costumes bring character to proceedings – Caterpillar wears essentially a giant yellow sleeping bag coat with multiple gloves sewn into it – and the theatre’s in-the-round layout is used effectively in creating a sense of spiralling unpredictability.
This is not a perfect production. Some of the songs are stronger than others, and elements of the dialogue verge on trite. But at a time of year when many venues retreat to Christmas staples in choosing what to stage, this reworked Alice cleverly manages to combine old and new. It has just enough panto-style audience interaction to keep the youngest audience members engaged, and just enough off-kilter charm for everyone else.
To 11 January, Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot (shakespearenorthplayhouse.co.uk)
