Tag Archives: Jack Bradfield

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

★★★★★

Brixton House

ALICE IN WONDERLAND at Brixton House

★★★★★

“a breath-taking instant classic for the London festive season”

What is at the end of the Victoria line? Rap battles and the Jabberwocky.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a classic book beloved by children and adults alike. Finding a first edition copy is as rare as finding chicken teeth. Finding yet another stage adaptation that actually feels new and exciting proves more challenging. What Poltergeist and writer-director Jack Bradfield have achieved with this unapologetic adaptation is jaw dropping. Alice in Wonderland is one and a half hours of boundary-busting theatre made by Londoners for Londoners. This iteration of the well-known story is so perfect in concept and execution that it makes you wonder why it hasn’t been done before.

Set in current day Brixton, 11-year-old Alice (Tatenda Matsvai) has a fight with her mum (Cheyenne Dasri) in Brixton tube station and jumps onto the Victoria line by herself. This sets off a tube journey into the world of nonsense where Alice realises that she is trapped on a train with the inhabitants of Wonderland. We meet familiar characters such as the White Rabbit, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and many more. In addition, we also meet people who Londoners will recognise instantly. This includes the commuters, ‘undergounders’ who have been on the tube for so long that they have lost their souls. The cast do an astounding job multi-rolling; their transitions are so smooth that you might only notice they are playing multiple roles in the second act. A standout here is Gavin Dunn who impressively alters his voice and physicality between playing The Rabbit, The Pigeon and Hammersmith (Yes, like the tube station – you need to see it to believe it).

Lyricist and Rapperturg, Gerel Falconer has created songs with composer and sound designer Alice Boyd that breathes new life into the familiar story, making space for this iteration to distinguish its own language. The audience is treated to rap solos and rap battles between characters, reminding us that London is a cultural wonderland. The composition of the sounds of Brixton and the underground are so clean that you can eat your dinner from it. A total treat for the ears! (Not only bunny ears).

‘Overgounder’ Alice travels down a rabbit hole of bottomless London Underground puns and immersive set design (Shankho Chaudhuri). You enter the theatre, and you are met by a recreation of a Victoria line carriage. The benches are covered in Victoria line fabric and the wall boasts posters like ‘The Jabberwocky is watching‘ and ‘See it, slay it, sorted’, immediately enforcing the idea that this is no ordinary tube line. The stage has a catwalk layout with the audience on either side. An entrance and exit on either end of the catwalk creates the illusion that the train has no beginning or an end. It is from these boundless tunnels that new and familiar characters emerge, creating expectation for what else is to come. It is impressive how well the set design is integrated into the script with trap doors that lead to the ominous wasteland ‘The Gap’ and lowering light rigs that become the tops of train carriages. The composition between lights, sound and set within the story is so clever and funny that you only need to sit back and enjoy this feast of a performance.

How will Alice ever escape the tube in time for Christmas? With rap battles, sword fights and dance breaks, Alice in Wonderland is a breath-taking instant classic for the London festive season. I wish more London theatre makers could embrace ridiculous ideas and execute them as flawlessly as this. All aboard for this highly imaginative, hilarious, and exhilarating tube journey down the Brixton rabbit hole!


ALICE IN WONDERLAND at Brixton House

Reviewed on 26th November 2024

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by Helen Murray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More reviews by Lara:

THE SNOWMAN | ★★★★ | PEACOCK THEATRE | November 2024
GOING FOR GOLD | ★★★★ | PARK THEATRE | November 2024

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

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Fireworks

Fireworks

★★★

VAULT Festival 2020

Fireworks

Fireworks

Cavern – The Vaults

Reviewed – 14th March 2020

★★★

 

“well acted and directed, and O’Mahony and Stevens draw the audience in with plenty of eye contact, and easy charm”

 

Fireworks, by Alex Robins, about the search for the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider, sounds like an intriguing proposition for a play. Robins developed the project with assistance from Plymouth Fringe, and the Plymouth Theatre Royal. His cast and crew, (director Jack Bradfield, dramaturg Jim Newton, and performers Gráinne O’Mahony and James Murphy-Stevens), helped Robins get the script in shape. And let’s not forget the guidance from Plymouth University’s Mathematical Sciences group, regarding the search for the Higgs boson, aka The God particle. Robins takes this quest and turns it into a drama to explain why theoretical physicists—and conspiracy theorists—are so hung up on Higgs and his boson.

Fireworks begins with a series of mini lectures about the standard model in theoretical physics by River, a young scientist, played very convincingly by O’Mahony. Her opposite number is Drew (Stevens), a young man obsessed with conspiracy theories such as the Mandela Effect, which suggests that the reason people remember facts, or events, differently, is that we are all in parallel universes in a “multiverse”. Running on different timelines, these universes sometimes intersect, and that is where the confusion begins. Not surprisingly, genuine scientists despair of ideas like these floating around on the world wide web. But anyway. While River spends her days explaining quarks to her ever dwindling pool of students, Drew plots to break into the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland to stop his universe disappearing when it is switched on in search of the Higgs boson.

Director Bradfield presents the action in the Cavern at VAULT Festival, with the audience seated on either side of the performance area. Set within this area, is a circular space with a ring of blinking lights. Every time an actor steps into the circular space, the lights change colour. The lights are also moving, sometimes at speed, meant to represent subatomic particles as they accelerate within the Collider. It’s a simple, but effective device. What is not so effective is the writing. Robins, for the most part, presents his drama as two monologues. It’s a good idea in theory (since his characters not only represent opposing points of view, but, from Drew’s perspective at least, different times) that doesn’t work that well in practice. There’s just too much exposition needed to clue the audience in. The connection between Drew and River doesn’t emerge in any concrete fashion until the end, and hence feels tacked on. Even the explosive ending—which I won’t describe in detail, because, spoilers—doesn’t integrate all that well into the rest of the play.

Nevertheless, Fireworks is well acted and directed, and O’Mahony and Stevens draw the audience in with plenty of eye contact, and easy charm. So watch this production without fear—you (and the rest of the audience) will exit the VAULT Festival in exactly the same universe that you entered.

 

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

 

VAULT Festival 2020

 

 

Click here to see all our reviews from VAULT Festival 2020