This favourite book has often been adapted as a stage-play for children but its surreal humour, dream-like nonsense and topsy-turvy logic justly make it popular with many adults. West Somerset writer and theatre director Katherine Kingsford has made a thoroughly faithful adaptation of Carroll's text and has selected a young, talented trio of actors to perform the many parts, helped by some super puppets. Katherine's approach to adapting the piece has been to keep it uncomplicated yet fully respecting the author's chess-game rules. Mystified wonder and strange creatures The book has Alice stepping through the mirror into a garden laid out like a chessboard, in square lawns. This is where Alice declares to the red queen "I'm only a pawn but I'd like to be a queen, too". So the queen invites Alice to begin a journey, square by square, as in the game of chess. The queen promises that if she can reach the last rank of squares, Alice can become a queen. The stage set, built by Patrick Daley, is very white. A wall at the back has a curtained entrance and further forward, to each side, are two smaller structures like tea-chests with open backs for actors to hide behind or find things in. Laura Inskip is utterly charming and a convincing child as Alice, in a pink dress beautifully made by Mo Best. Laura trips playfully through the many scenes, with an engaging air of mystified wonder at all the strange creatures she meets and the odd things she is taught on Alice's dream-journey. All the other parts are played by Finnian Hanlon and Maria Cassidy, kept more than busy acting so many extraordinary characters, including the giant gnat, Haigha the Messenger, the walrus, the carpenter, the lion and the unicorn, and, of course, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Finnian is a lively lad, also likeable and funny as all the white characters, the knight, the king and even the white queen, while Maria is impressive and talented as the red queen and Humpty-Dumpty. But Maria's voice is especially good when conducting an argument between the lion puppet on her right hand and the unicorn on her left. She rapidly switches voices without a hitch until the audience forgets Maria is speaking for both of them, her eyes glancing from one to the other like a tennis referee. A professional production The actors boldly enter and exit in their various characters, or with bits of scenery and props or puppets. The children in this first-night audience accepted the pretence as readily as in their own let's pretend games. To keep the length of the play suitable for young children, some longer passages have been left among the pages of the book. But there is much to giggle at in this well-performed version of one of the world's best-known children's books. But its many subtleties and witty logic will amuse parents just as well. This professional production of Alice can be found at village halls around Somerset and East Devon until 20 April 2007. For details, call 01984 640773. | 
