Alice in Wonderland: Box Tale Soup: Review

Alice in Wonderland

Box Tale Soup

The Warren: Main House: Russell Place, East Brighton, BN1 2RG

May 3

From the sweet opening premise of a huge box enclosing the world of Alice to the engaging a simple projection of Alice into this well thought out and detailed world, this puppet show was a treat. Box Tale Soup’s production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland whisks audience down the well-known rabbit hole and into the frankly bonkers world of Lewis Carol’s mind. The duo of puppeteers and live action worked very well, keeping the attention of the children and adults in the audience, our little one was entranced from start to finish which is no mean feat for a Sunday afternoon. Alice was fun, and although I found her characterisation rather surreal it don’t think many other folk noticed and to be honest a little girl shrinking down and making metaphysical small talk with Rabbits and Caterpillars is pretty high on the surreal ranking anyway.

Directed by Mark Collier & Robert Soulsby-Smith who bring a fresh interpretation of this familiar tale to the Warren stage and have brought a intimacy of action to Antonia Christopher’s and Noel Byrne, they interact well and slip and slide between scene and characters, puppets and focus with well-practiced ease with plenty of nods to the knowing and some small quiet moments of puppeting joy. They are a slick pair of performers who hide their technical mastery under this charming and seemingly very simple show producing an hour of understated brilliance.

To see more of this brilliant duo, CLICK HERE:

The darker sides of the story were buried and the songs were presented in a amusing way whcih is the usual contempory reading of Alice. I went with my partner and his twin brother and sitting between them while I watched a brilliant musical version of Tweedle Dee/Dum unfold with slick and delicate glee was a highlight. It was a bit wordy on occasion but then a play based on conversational exchange is always going to be that no matter how much effort goes into changes of scene or the rather delightful sound scapeing from Dan Melrose. This compact revision of the story ticked all the right boxes, introduced all the right characters and allowed the story to progress without getting too bogged down in Alice’s thoughts. The sets were wonderful, creative and inspired and Box Tale does this ‘world within a trunk’ thing very very well indeed. A special mention should be made for the utterly divine Red Queen who was simply inspired in voice.