Wellington Pantomime Group’s reputation for providing audiences with a couple of hours of colourful fun brought out the crowds last week, writes Gill Paltridge. Their latest production of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at the Wellesley Theatre invited us to defy wintery weather and slippery streets and escape with Alice down the rabbit hole for a while.
Lewis Carroll’s wacky tale is a surreal, dreamlike narrative that derives not least from his extraordinary understanding of children’s imaginative abilities. Populated by the most zany characters, weird animals and bizarre situations, it makes absolutely no sense, but it has proved time and again to work for successive generations of children, both as a book and in performance. But to make it work effectively as ‘drama’ requires a limitless budget, some serious technical trickery and a fertile imagination to rival Tim Burton’s – none of which an amateur group Wellington Pantomime has available..
To be fair, this is the pantomime version of ‘Alice’ and so we should expect pantomime’s stock characters – dames played by large men, principal boys played by tall girls, heroines, villains and a comic turn or two – all thrown into the mix with Carroll’s anthropomorphic creatures. And this is exactly what we get – not ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as much as ‘Alice in Pantoland’.
Alice Cambridge as ‘Alice’ is near perfect. She looks right, conveys naive zest and childish glee in her adventures and has an assured stage presence. Paul Smith’s Dame does exactly what Dames should do – makes the most of gender-bending jokes and general daftness – whilst ‘borrowing’ Dame Edna’s ironic mouth and Les Dawson’s bosom-hitch for physical effect.
The nicely-drawn marriage between Dawn Morton’s Queen of Hearts and Catherine Vicarage’s diminutive King looks like an unhealthy relationship between a rat and a rhino but it works, particularly the latter’s obvious understanding of the way body-language and well-worked mannerisms enhance a role. For me, the King actually stole the show, although Mary Lewis’s White Rabbit is another star turn – an agitated, hyperactive bundle of fur – who tuned in completely to the animal’s twitchiness.
Less successful is Sam Shepherd’s Joker – another character that seems to have strayed from his own story. He was irritating – deliberately? – and is clearly very comfortable in telling bad jokes and playing to the audience but the role could do with greater attention to detail – particularly physically – and much more sustained control. He can do camp and confident but there is more to make from the role. Kirk Shepherd’s Knave of Spades draws the necessary boos and hisses from the audience but might learn to convey physical menace and malice as well as shouting.
Having to struggle with such a messy script can’t be easy for either the director or the cast but they did try with it. But, sadly, it didn’t quite work, particularly in the second half. The plot just about made sense before the interval, despite stirring together some ill-conceived fragments of narrative, plucked apparently randomly from children’s stories, into Lewis’s madcap imagery. So, a scene with what appears to be some capering haggises singing ‘Hoots, Mon! There’s a Moose, Loose …’ was followed by the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two large eggs – wearing costumes that many actors would demand danger-money to put on – appear to have got lost en route to ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and decided to gate-crash this panto instead. After the interval the plot gives up almost completely and makes way for a succession of song’n’dance numbers and a bit of ad-libbing and audience interaction.
Despite the negatives, the show looks good. It is beautifully lit in the essential primary colours and the disco effects in ‘Boogie Wonderland’ and a bit of UV in ‘Clair de Lune’ make them both effective musical numbers. The costume team should be lauded for turning actors out onto the stage looking right – dancing haggises excepted (and they are not to blame anyway). The band of strolling hippies, that defy any kind of attempt at explanation or purpose, suggest that one of the team was right there in the Age of Aquarius and has kept the wardrobe.
Choreography too works well – and the plot certainly needs bracing with dance numbers to prevent it from falling apart – as does the musical backing. Ian Webb-Taylor and his musicians underscore and punctuate the whole piece – and manage to get through a shopping trolley’s worth of confectionary at the same time. The backstage team do their thankless tasks effectively and all the technical trickery – fireworks, bangs, crashes etc – is managed faultlessly.
There is no doubt that an audience that represented the town’s entire age-range had a good night out at the panto. There was enough to enjoy and a huge amount of work and commitment to applaud. It is such a pity that the chosen vehicle – the script itself – failed to do anything other than stutter before lurching to a halt on the hard-shoulder. The team worked manfully to get it going but the engine was dead – and Alice didn’t go to Wonderland.
Surely a pantomime is all about audience interaction and fun rather than focusing on a plot itself? The idea is that the audience come out having had a good time and, certainly, when I went to see it the audience had a great time and that is what really counts.
Bravo Wellington Pantomime group for a wonderful show.
Not a bad review, but I feel the reviewer may have missed the definition of Pantomime and Commedia dell’Arte – it shouldn’t make sense. Mad characters, typecast loons, The most accurate review will come from the kids leaving… I only saw smiles! See you next year!
On a really positive note please note that £1088 was raised by the enthusiastic audience. THANK YOU!
I actually took part in the show.
Alice- Alice was wonderful and gave out nothing but joy! You should’ve seen the faces on the little girls who had pictures with her afterwards! It was like they were meeting their hero!
I hope you come watch it next year. It is sure to be brilliant 😀 Thank-you for the review.
This was a great Pantomime as a panto director I could only wish for such great actors as the Joker, Alice, March Hare and Mad Hatter. The children and adults around me were ful of smiles and laughter. The story had all the great characters from the story and if every production followed the same story to a tee who would want to go and see it. This Panto gave actors of all ages the chance to take part and enjoy the fun of panto . Congratulations to all who worked so hard. I loook forward to next years production
I’m uncomfortable about this review because it seems to miss the point in several ways: a pantomime plot is always episodic, incoherent, illogical – and aims to provide a mix of fun, song and dance for a varied cast. It also aims at a very broad audience. The Joker was a case in point: he hit the audience where I was sitting every time. The reviewer also needs to have another look at Tenniel’s illustrations of Tweedledum and Tweedledee – she’s in for quite a surprise.
I was an audience member for the Wellington Pantomime and I think this review failed to bring out many important parts of the Panto. You failed to mentions both the Mad Hatter and The March Hare, both were strong characters as well as the soldiers.
I completely disagree with your opinion of the Joker, Sam’s Joker brought the Panto to life with the typical wacky character who made lots of jokes.
The way you’ve ended your review makes it sound as if no one enjoyed any of it, I though it was a humourous Panto and so did the rest of the audience that I spoke too.
It wasn’t the greatest script but (as someone has already pointed out) Panto scripts don’t have to make sense – narrative arc is not where it’s at. It was visually good and if (for me) there was rather too much song and dance and rather too little porridge poured down people’s trousers, at least the song and dance routines were well done.
I also have to disagree with the criticism of the Joker. I was there on the first night, in the snow, with the Dress Rehearsal abandoned the night before, some of the cast having slept in the theatre, half the sold-out stalls empty and almost no children. A terribly hard audience to get and keep going, but Sam gave it 110%. Of course the jokes were awful – they are supposed to be awful. He delivers them, he doesn’t write them. But for one so young I thought he deserved full credit for effort. A real trouper.
Alice… was wonderful.
Well done, everyone. Nil carborundum.
Clearly alternative universes exist and Gill Paltridge obviously lives in one of those alternative spaces.
I went to the Saturday matinee performance and it was excellent in every respect. All members of the cast gave highly creditable performances including Sam Shepherd as the Joker. Sam’s character couldn’t have been sillier and isn’t that the whole point of panto? Or doesn’t it work like that on alternative Earth?
I thoroughly enjoyed the show. The performers worked their socks off from begining to end taking the audience on a roller coaster ride of colour, rapid costume changes, uproarious comedic scenes and outstanding good old fashined entertaining music. This is just what the doctor ordered to beat the miserable weather and January blues. Not so much Alice in Wonderland as Audience in Wonderful-land!
BOOO to the critic, the pantomime was fabulous!! I went with some of my sisters and our families and we had an amazing time, lots of dancing in their seats and the engagement of the audience was fantastic!!! The mixture of songs and scenes was well balanced, and many of the songs where well known by the children!! It made such an impact on my 5 year old, today she told me “I still don’t know how they were frozen mummy”, and she cannot wait to see what magical show awaits us next year!! I thought Sam was great as the jester even when the kids gave him the answers to his jokes, and you felt Kevin’s” bad vibes every time he came on stage!!! We had a scream, and three very little girls chatted animately about the panto all through their walk home, they even tried to do their own panto during the afternoon with our very own Princess Ruby! A huge thank you to all who gave their time and effort either as actors, musicians, or behind the scenes to bring such joy to their local town, WELL DONE!