United Kingdom Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Dancers of The Royal Ballet, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Koen Kessels (conductor). Directed for the screen by Ross MacGibbon and seen at Cineworld Basildon, Essex, 15.10.2024. (JPr)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an odd ballet to have at the start of a new season and not in December where it would be the ideal antidote to the endless Nutcrackers we usually get; though this year at Covent Garden it is Cinderella. Though whatever point of the year it is put on it is debatable whether Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet can ever be entirely successful as a first ballet. Since at three hours (including intervals) it is much too long for younger children who will surely get bored despite all the phantasmagoria
Nevertheless, it remains – as I wrote in 2014 (when I saw my only other performance) – a great concept and a family-friendly story, though possibly more familiar these days to parents rather than their children. Even I must admit that I am not overly familiar with Lewis Carroll’s original Alice stories though I understand the ballet is quite faithful to her original adventures in Wonderland.
Regardless, it has been given a surreal, highly visual, full-on staging which proves how second–thoughts are almost never the best. In 2011 Alice’s Adventures was a two-act ballet, though subsequently revised and now has three acts. Surely no one can dispute how the second act – even with the waltzing flowers at the end – is mostly padding, even though it does provide some repose from a frenetic Act I. After a weird Tea Party, the Rajah/Caterpillar (a writhing Nicol Edmonds) ‘magic mushroom’ interlude is parachuted in from an entirely different evening (think, La Bayadère or The Prince of the Pagodas). The Caterpillar (a chorus line en pointe) is another of Bob Crowley’s imaginative designs, though that in itself is not enough to justify this entire unnecessary act.
Act I opens with Downton Abbey-the ballet, if there was to be such a thing. At the late-nineteenth century Oxford deanery of Alice’s father we meet her mean-spirited mother and all the servants and guests who will become the characters of the story Alice probably imagines as her escape from the real world. Lewis Carroll is there reading his stories and taking pictures, and he will become the White Rabbit. Alice is a teenager on the cusp of puberty and is attracted to the gardener Jack who is sacked when Alice’s mother mistakenly believes he has stolen a jam tart. Alice follows the White Rabbit through a huge jelly – it was Lewis Carroll’s camera bag in 2014 – and falls through a time tunnel which reminded me of the 1960s’ TV series of the same name. Throughout the rest of the ballet Wheeldon just finds ways of bringing Alice (a delicate, graceful Francesca Hayward) and Jack-turned-Knave-of-Hearts (a convincingly laddish William Bracewell) back together for romantic – if repetitive – Romeo and Juliet-like duets in each act. Apart from those, Alice just simply rushes about wide-eyed, smiling, and reacting to what else is happening around her.
The other characters seem much better treated and it is the Queen of Hearts (Alice’s mother in the Prologue) who benefits from Lauren Cuthbertson’s scenery-chewing performance; Cuthbertson had been Alice in 2014. She dominates proceedings with every appearance, even when merely wheeled on during the first two acts in a huge heart-shaped red ‘dress’. The Queen gets a wonderful parody of The Sleeping Beauty’s famous ‘Rose Adage’, now involving jam tarts instead of flowers: it was very, very funny though again at odds with everything else. Earlier, there had been another clear reference to The Sleeping Beauty as Alice and the White Rabbit travel on a huge paper boat made from one of the book’s pages through a forest, as in the Panorama from the more famous ballet.
James Hay as the White Rabbit wiggled and twitched appealingly. Other familiar characters are often instantly recognisable including The Duchess (Gary Avis, a dead-ringer for Widow Simone in La Fille mal gardée), the Cook (Kristen McNally), Fish-Footman (Tristan Dyer), Frog-Footman (Daichi Ikarashi), a huge Cheshire Cat manipulated by a number of puppeteers whose body parts appear to dematerialise and float about, and The Dormouse (Sophie Allnatt). It was good to see Steven McRae as The Mad Hatter (aka ‘The Mad Tapper’) returning to the role he created, and which is now part of his ongoing rehab after two career-threatening injuries.
The big ensemble scenes looked rather chaotic – especially as experienced in Ross MacGibbon’s close-up direction for the cinema – since there was often so much going on. These were the Caucus Race, the Sweeney Todd-like sausage-making scene in the Cook’s kitchen, the croquet game (with flamingos like the late Rod Hull’s Emu) and a climactic trial scene, though all the dancers of The Royal Ballet were commendably on great form.
How does it all end? Well, ‘Alice’ wakes up in modern times having fallen asleep reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland outside the (former?) deanery now offering cream teas to visitors. A sightseer with a camera (James Hay) seems familiar to Alice and he takes a photo of her and ‘Jack’ with her mobile phone.
As Wheeldon readily admits his Alice’s Adventures bridges the gap between classical ballet and theatre. With its many scenic and lighting transitions and costume changes, Wheeldon suggested it runs like a musical. Indeed, it is spectacle which Wheeldon and his collaborators do best with their spectacular sets, colourful costumes, magical special effects and fantasy figures bringing the story to life. The jury is still out for me concerning Joby Talbot’s original score with its prominent ticking of a clock and mostly percussive and insistent soundworld. From what we heard through the cinema loudspeakers the conductor Koen Kessels jollied-along the reliable Orchestra of The Royal Opera House to give the proceedings the suitably spirited impetus the often-frantic movement demanded.
Jim Pritchard
Cast:
Alice – Francesca Hayward
Jack / The Knave of Hearts – William Bracewell
Lewis Carroll / The White Rabbit – James Hay
Mother / The Queen of Hearts – Lauren Cuthbertson
Father / The King of Hearts – Bennet Gartside
Magician / The Mad Hatter – Steven McRae
Rajah / The Caterpillar – Nicol Edmonds
The Duchess – Gary Avis
Vicar / The March Hare – Taisuke Nakao
Verger / The Dormouse – Sophie Allnatt
The Cook – Kristen McNally
Footman / Fish – Leo Dixon
Footman / Frog – Daichi Ikarashi
Alice’s Sisters – Marianna Tsembenhoi, Bomin Kim
Butler / Executioner – Kevin Emerton
The Three Gardeners – Harry Churches, Joshua Junker, Marco Masciari
Production:
Choreography – Christopher Wheeldon
Scenario – Nicholas Wright
Music – Joby Talbot
Orchestration – Christopher Austin, Joby Talbot
Staging – Christopher Saunders, Elizabeth Toohey
Designs: Bob Crowley
Lighting design – Natasha Katz
Projection design – Jon Driscoll, Gemma Carrington
Original sound design – Andrew Bruce for Autograph