‘To see a rabbit is nothing remarkable… To hear it comment upon the time is quite remarkable… To follow it down a rabbit-hole into a strange new world not knowing how you’ll get out again is something extraordinarily remarkable indeed!

As Alice encounters the weird, wacky and wonderful characters who live in the world at the other end of the rabbit-hole, she’ll experience an adventure like never before! Finding her way home again won’t be an easy task and it will definitely make her rethink all the thoughts she has previously thought!’

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This promotional introduction to the performance of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by the touring group This is My Theatre certainly gives a flavour of the story. It doesn’t quite indicate how very slick and fast-moving the cast were in each successive scene. The props and costumes were minimal but suggested clearly which character was being portrayed whether it was Alice’s family, the White Rabbit, Dum and Dee, or The Queen of Hearts. The shrinking and expanding of Alice were cleverly portrayed with props that were identical apart from their size and a table, which one of the actors held aloft at a moment when he was fulfilling a stage manager’s role. Another clever device was when two of the actors held a blue cloth representing the tears Alice had shed that she nearly drowned in.

The production fitted so neatly into the hay barn at Stanstead Bury that it would seem to have been created expressly for it. This is the fourth production that they have brought here – I for one look forward to the next one.

The performance lasted approximately one hour and 20 minutes without an interval and kept the audience completely rapt.

Review by Julia Davies