Style: Child friendly fun
Where: Zoom
Rating: 4/5 stars
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has to be one of the most replicated and flexible pieces of art around. In my years of watching immersive theatre, I’ve seen it done in so many different styles and for so many different audiences. From the sexy Then She Fell to the bawdy Alice Underground.
This Alice takes the work back to its roots as a children’s entertainment.
Just as you would in a real theme park, here you choose a route through the various amusements. As you click on different links these cleverly take you into Zoom rooms where you meet the familiar cast of Wonderland. each then performs a short skit to you or plays a game with you. There’s a degree of audience participation (especially with the Queen of Hearts – an excellently cross Vera Chok) set at a level that the kids in the audience can both join in and enjoy.
Watching the other faces on screen, the kids clearly were having fun. Pitched somewhat at panto level, this show had a requisite amount of scatalogical humour and a baddie that was genuinely chilling as she threw you out of her Zoom. Clever tricks too with props and mirrors made the show a fun experience. However, unlike the best written panto, this didn’t have much of the kind of humour that works on both levels, so it was definitely more for the kids than the adults.
However, clocking in at just over an hour, I think this would make a pretty fine pre-bedtime activity (I might push the start time a little earlier to stop parents being faced with hyped-up kids just before bed). It was fun and lighthearted and full of the baffling charm of the original.
Theatre on Zoom can be unstatisfying at times. Children’s theatre on Zoom as a childless adult more so. But fun was definitely had – by me and by the target audience.
Soaked in Dreams 