Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with Sarah Lamb, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, March 2013

This cleverly whimsical ballet, reflecting the essence of Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, provides stage magic for the whole family. You don’t need any experience of ballet to appreciate the various vignettes, including the Adagio for the Queen of Hearts and four playing cards in Act III, a wicked take on the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty. Itziar Mendizabal as the Queen played it to perfection, inspiring the audience to their biggest applause of the evening.

Dancers appear in the audience, all images ©ROH/ Johan Persson

Yet the main applause must go to the pure refinement of Sarah Lamb’s Alice, who takes all the strange happenings with perfect equanimity. It all starts with a garden party, and when Lewis Carroll takes a flash photograph of her, the lighting changes dramatically, throwing the guests into an otherworldly aura, while Ricardo Cervera as Carroll opens a hole in the ground, and assuming the persona of the White Rabbit takes Alice into Wonderland. The other characters from the garden party reappear in various roles, with Federico Bonelli as Alice’s beloved Jack turning into the Knave of Hearts.

Alice and Jack

Act I is full of clever stage effects and video projections, and when Alice sticks her head through the little door to peep into the world beyond, colourful dancers suddenly appear in the audience. Act II contains one magical incident after another including the Cheshire Cat that decomposes and eventually reconstitutes itself as a single large face, the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, the mushroom with a Caterpillar that later scurries off stage on multiple feet en pointe, and much more. Alexander Campbell, Thomas Whitehead and James Wilkie were superb as the Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse, and Gary Avis and Kristen McNally were terrific as the Duchess and the Cook in Act I, reappearing in an aggressive pas-de-deux in Act III.

Sarah Lamb was lovely in her final pas-de-deux with Bonelli in Act III, and the Company performed with precision and vivacity. Yes, it’s all nonsense, very different from the ethereal magic of Sleeping Beauty, but Christopher Wheeldon and his designer Bob Crowley have recognised the very different magic of Lewis Carroll, and created something fun for dancers and audience alike. Joby Talbot’s music, orchestrated jointly with Christopher Austin, is full of the atmosphere of a warm summer’s day at the right moments, as well as the staccato confusion of the characters in Alice’s dream, and this co-production with the National Ballet of Canada was very well conducted by David Briskin from that company.

Performances with various casts continue until April 13, with two Saturday matinees. All are sold out, but there is a live cinema screening on March 28 — for details click here.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, March 2012

In the world of dreams real people can take on strange identities, and so it is here. It all starts at tea in a large garden, where Alice’s mother ejects her daughter’s beloved Jack, the gardener’s son.

Alice, all images Johan Persson

To distract the disappointed Alice, Lewis Carroll conjures up a large hole in the ground and disappears down it, growing a bunny tail and long ears. He has become the white rabbit, encouraging Alice to follow him down the hole. We see a video projection as she floats down, landing up in front of an array of doors. Shrinking and growing she tries to squeeze through a small door, and suddenly the auditorium fills with colourful performers, bright confetti raining down on them from the dome above. The effects are wonderful, and while Lewis Carroll has become the white rabbit, Alice’s father and mother turn into the King and Queen of Hearts, with Jack as the Knave, accused of stealing the tarts, and appearing in court. But was it Jack, or was it the vicar, who becomes the March Hare? Other people from the garden party appear too: the magician who arrives to entertain them becomes the Mad Hatter, and the Rajah who arrives with his retinue becomes the Caterpillar.

In an entirely different development, this revival has converted the two acts of the world premiere a year ago — see my review at the time — into three acts, a welcome change.

Steven McRae as the Mad Hatter

On opening night this time around, Lauren Cuthbertson repeated her wonderful performance of Alice, and Federico Bonelli did well in the role of Jack, taking over from Sergei Polunin who has vanished from the scene. Once again Edward Watson was very fine as Lewis Carroll and the White Rabbit, and Eric Underwood was a super Caterpiller. Laura Morera was a strong Queen of Hearts, but Philip Mosley lacked stage presence as the Duchess, particularly compared to Simon Russell Beale last year. As for the Mad Hatter, Steven McRae was superb again, his tap dancing utterly brilliant.

Joby Talbot’s music, conducted again by Barry Wordsworth, provides just the right atmosphere, giving a hot summery feel to the garden party in Act I, and I like the allusions to the Rose Adagio in Sleeping Beauty, and the clock scene in Cinderella. Bob Crowley’s designs are glorious, beautifully lit by Natasha Katz, and the scenario by Nicholas Wright brings Lewis Carroll’s story very cleverly to the ballet stage. The dream becomes real, but in the end Alice falls back into the real world, returning to the garden party with Jack, and the dream seems to have done the trick.

Performances continue until April 16 — for details click here.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, February 2011

When the performers came on at the end, even the trees took a bow. It was that sort of evening, when the whole cast did a superb job, and the audience loved them all. And why not indeed? This was the world premiere of a brand new full-length ballet choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon to specially commissioned music by Joby Talbot, and the audience roared their approval.

Lauren Cuthbertson as Alice and Sergei Polunin as Jack, photos by Johan Persson

Lewis Carroll’s original story is a wonderfully unusual and creative tale, hard to put on stage as a ballet because it’s impossible to reproduce Carroll’s clever word play. But this ballet matched its creativity, and the music matched the choreography. The scenario by Nicholas Wright was very effective, the lighting design by Natasha Katz was magical, and the video projections were glorious. I loved the fluttering leaves towards the end, and the tumble down the rabbit hole early in Act I gave me a sudden sense of vertigo.

Alice trapped by being too large

But what of the dancing? Lauren Cuthbertson was a remarkable Alice — how on earth did she keep going in Act I when she’s on stage virtually all the time? Amazing! Sergei Polunin was a star as her beloved Jack, the gardener’s son, and as his alter ego the Knave of Hearts. Steven McRae was fantastic as the Mad Hatter — his tap dancing was brilliant, and I loved his costume in pink and green. In fact the costumes and designs by Bob Crowley were a delight. I liked the nineteenth century outfits at the start, as if we were in A Month in the Country, followed by modern clothes at the end. That might seem odd, since Alice is simply waking from a dream and the costumes should be the same when she awakes, but somehow it worked. And in between — in Wonderland — the costumes were immensely colourful.

Zenaida Yanowsky as the Queen of Hearts

So many vignettes from the original story were included, one cannot mention them all, but Simon Russell Beale as the Duchess in the ‘Pig and Pepper’ chapter was a revelation. I had no idea he was so musical. Eric Underwood was a wonderful caterpillar, and Edward Watson was very fine in his two roles, as Lewis Carroll and the White Rabbit. But if one had to pick one performer, apart from Lauren Cuthbertson, it was Zenaida Yanowsky as the Queen of Hearts. She was also the mother in the ‘prologue’, ejecting Alice’s beloved Jack from the garden party because she thought he stole a tart — then in Wonderland she becomes the imperious Queen of Hearts. Her spoof on the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty was worth the whole show, and Yanowsky played it with superb comic timing.

In case it sounds as if I was overwhelmed with appreciation, here are a couple of quibbles. I thought Act I had moments where things didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and the choreography was dull, though Act II carried on at a frenetic pace. And while Joby Talbot’s music suited the choreography very well, with wonderful uses of the percussion section, and Barry Wordsworth got the orchestra to play it eloquently, I felt a lack of tension. But these are relatively minor quibbles, and if we compare this new full-length ballet to the new full-length opera Anna Nicole that premiered from the Royal Opera House less than two weeks ago, the ballet is far more creative.

See it during its first run if you can, though I’m sure it will be revived in a year or two’s time. This is a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, whose first performance in Toronto is on June 4. Performances by the Royal Ballet continue until March 15 — for more details click here.