ALICE IN WONDERLAND

(Mthokozisi Zulu as the White Rabbit & Georgina Mabbett as Alice.

Photo by Val Adamson)

KickstArt’s family end-of-year 2019 pantomime is a spectacular new production based on the classic book by Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which comes to the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from November 29, 2019, until January 5, 2020.

Durban’s daring and bold theatre production company, KickstArt, has a reputation of staging fabulous, inventive and extravagant family festive season pantomimes every Christmas since 2004. The panto is always the culmination of their theatrical year. This year KickstArt’s programme at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre has included Noel Coward’s delicious Private Lives in October and Charlotte’s Web in July. They also staged the glorious comedy, Shirley Valentine for the Women’s Arts Festival at the Playhouse. Their productions are seen by over 40,000 people every year.

This new version of Alice in Wonderland offers a glorious array of zany, topsy-turvy characters, including colourful puppets as well as magical scenery, vibrant costumes, topical jokes and toe-tapping songs.

Written and directed by Steven Stead, and designed by Greg King, the show stars Georgina Mabbett as Alice, with Liesl Coppin as the Queen of Hearts, Belinda Henwood as the White Queen, Mthokozisi Zulu as the White Rabbit, Blessing Xaba as Nurse Nora Knowalot, Lyle Buxton as the Mad Hatter, Roland Perold as the Knave of Hearts, and Ewok Iain Robinson and James Cuningham as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

The story was originally a novel written in 1865 by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) about the adventures of a young girl, Alice, who accidentally falls down a rabbit hole into a mystical fantasy world of quirky characters and bizarre animals.

The tale is full of riddles and conundrums accessible to both adult and children readers and is one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre of its time. An array of quotes from Alice have become absorbed into popular parlance. Some of the best loved ones include: “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”; “Curiouser and curiouser!” and “We're all mad here.”

Alice in Wonderland runs at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from November 29, 2019, until January 5, 2020. Ticket prices: Adults R250 / R200 / R150. Children, students, pensioners R200 / R180 / R120. Schools’ and Preview Performances: R140 throughout (No discounts). Book at Computicket.