Tag Archives: Rosa Garland

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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TWO SUPER SUPER HOT MEN

★★★★★

VAULT Festival 2020

Two Super Super Hot Men

Two Super Super Hot Men

Studio – The Vaults

Reviewed – 13th March 2020

★★★★★

 

“an award-worthy piece that is pointedly political while being warmly hilarious and wonderfully entertaining”

 

Climate change is one of the burning issues of the moment. Some protest to try to bring about global action while others deny it.

The very daft, but utterly engaging “Two Super Super Hot Men” is a small play asking big questions from the perspective of people who might not ordinarily expect to be concerned by its impact. This is drag king comedy with a conscience.

Saying as much in 50 minutes as David Attenborough has in dozens of TV documentaries over many years Alan and Ron (the clownish alter-egos of performers Rosa Garland and Alice Boyd) give a thought-provoking and extremely funny perspective on global warming, the dangers of being ill-informed (and of blaming everybody else in a crisis), and a plant called Carol.

It is a knowingly ridiculous take on the issue as the two geeky middle-aged foley artists stuck in a small UK studio provide the sound effects for documentaries about climate change and begin to experience the shocking realities of the problem for themselves. Butter becomes sand, milk goes off in a warm fridge, water turns into stones as the pair get involved in increasingly absurd offshoots of the seriously-voiced factual programme.

Ron (Garland) regularly makes good strong Yorkshire tea and removes a collection of gaudy Hawaiian shirts while commenting on how hot it is; Alan (Boyd) has an alarm go off on his watch when it is time to tend beloved plant Carol, with whom he develops an interesting relationship and finds leaves sprouting from parts of his own body.

The two performers (who are also artistic directors and writers of the project) don’t put a foot wrong playing the two well-observed men, sprinkling the show with some terrific examples of mime, clown-like buffoonery and a working relationship that is spot on, particularly in some fast-fire conversation gags.

The humour begins the moment the audience arrives with the pair asking members to give them something that will make an interesting sound, then one does something with the item close to a microphone. So we get jangling keys (“that could be soft rain”), an opening and closing wallet (“sounds like a bat taking wing”) and a crinkly sweet wrapper (“that has to be a small squirrel”). We are cleverly misdirected into the duo’s world where the presence of a universal threat to life can be comfortably ignored.

An oft-repeated mantra is “If I didn’t do it and I didn’t do it then what are we worrying about!” – the cry of thousands who think the environmental crisis is only happening elsewhere in the world or is just a problem to be tackled by the next generation.

This is an award-worthy piece that is pointedly political while being warmly hilarious and wonderfully entertaining. It will be playing at the Brighton Fringe in May but deserves to be seen in theatres big and small, in schools and on street corners.

It’s one of the best examples of how Fringe theatre can tackle a contemporary concern with comedy and devastating directness. Let’s hope Alan and Ron can shine similar light on other significant environmental concerns in the future.

 

Reviewed by David Guest

Photography by Cam Harle

 

VAULT Festival 2020

 

 

Click here to see all our reviews from VAULT Festival 2020