Following the huge success of last year’s festive hit The Wind in the Willows, Rose Theatre Kingston’s most successful Christmas production to date, the theatre today announces its 2017 Christmas show Alice in Winterland. The play, based on Lewis Carroll’s much loved Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, is adapted and directed by Ciaran McConville, following his acclaimed productions of The Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, with music and lyrics by Eamonn O’Dwyer, and featuring a professional cast alongside a group of Rose Youth Theatre actors.
Alice has always been brought up to believe in wonder but her life takes an unexpected turn when she is sent to live with her stern auntie… until she is visited by a White Rabbit and propelled on a quest to save Winterland.
Follow Alice to the magically curious world of Winterland, a world of ice and imagination, of mad hatters and cruel queens, strong-minded dodos and friendly knights. A world inhabited by the mysterious Bandersnatch and the terrible Jabberwock, a world that lies in the shuffle of a pack of cards or in the lines across a chess board, where the impossible becomes possible…
This dazzlingly festive new stage production is based on Lewis Carroll’s timeless books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Step through the Looking Glass with Alice this Christmas and join her for this glorious adventure.
Ciaran McConville said today:
“Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland books are genius. They’re funny, clever, exciting and completely bonkers. I’m looking forward to the challenge of writing a festive adventure from such a mad melée of brilliant characters. Carroll’s work will always resonate because he writes about a child trying to make sense of the world and herself. She doesn’t always get it right, and there’s often a battle between head and heart, but she always stands up against injustice and she has faith in her own imagination – something we all need to remember at Christmas, I think.”
The production will once again be supported by Wahid Samady and CNM Estates, who have sponsored the Rose Theatre Kingston Christmas show since 2014.
The Olivier nominated smash hit “ALICE’S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND” returns to The Vaults from 15 April to 23 September 2017. Tickets are available to under 26’s for just £25 each for the 5.45pm performance on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 25 April 2017.
“ALICE’S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND” was originally conceived as a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s classic novel of the same name. This unmissable show had over 100,000 visitors in 2015, culminating in a 2016 Olivier Award nomination for Best Entertainment and Family Show.
With even more twists and turns for 2017, “ALICE’S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND” invites you deep into The Vaults, hidden beneath Waterloo station, to lose yourself in a land far removed from our own.
Writer and Director Oliver Lansley said: “It’s very rare you get the opportunity to revisit a piece like this. Alice 2.0 is bigger, bolder and even more ambitious. New characters, effects, huge new set pieces, and exciting new layers added to the script. You really will be at the heart of the adventure, and this year if you’re under 26 its just £25 each! Whilst such an offer is unusual outside the subsidised sector we felt it was important because under 26s were such a large part of the show’s success last time.”
Tumble down the rabbit hole and experience immersion like never before in this interactive, puppetry-packed, fusion of storytelling, music, circus and spectacle…but this isn’t Alice’s adventure, it’s yours…
Make a series of choices; Eat or drink? Grow or Shrink? And find yourself at the centre of the story as you wander through Wonderland, piecing together the puzzle as to what has happened to Alice who is lost in the looking glass. Be careful as your choice leads you down a completely different path into Wonderland; you might grow to enormous proportions and become one of Wonderland’s elite rubbing shoulders with the highest of playing card suits; or you might shrink to be so small that even border control can’t detect you; take tea at the biggest un-birthday party with the maddest of Hatters; let the Cheshire Cat take you hither or thither or you could even find yourself playing a key part in an underground resistance movement to rise against the fearsome Queen.
“ALICE’S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND” is written by Oliver Lansley and Anthony Spargo and directed by Oliver Lansley and James Seager; and produced by Les Enfants Terribles and ebp in association with Creature of London. Les Enfants Terribles and ebp have recently be nominated for an Innovation Award in The Stage Awards 2017 and also featured on The Stage 100 Theatre Power List.
