Wonderland

I've been to see Scottish Ballet's production of Alice. 

It began with Alice climbing through a camera and venturing into wonderland with her minder. I hate to say that it was rather boring at the start as there was no real dancing just a lot of spectacle and the spectacle wasn't that great. It picked up with some men in tutu's and some real dancing. The lifts were precarious and fantastic, such intricate patterns of folding limbs. I do not want to fault the dancers on their dancing but only the slightly repetitive choreography and the constant feeling of uncertainty in the performance as if it was under-rehearsed. 

The costumes were amazing and the scenery was brilliant, it was great to see the versatility of what started out as a giant camera and morphed into a kitchen, court room and various other walls and scenes. The costume of the cook which was a black dress with a white front and apron was beautiful, it had grey edges at the bottom and gave a lovely figure to the dancer who played her part very well and was an under appreciated performer in my view. 

I loved all the Hearts court costumes with a military style edging to all the costumes.
The part I particularly loved was the Jack to the Queen who was persecuted for stealing one tart! But luckily was saved from being beheaded by the Jaberwock by Alice's minder.

The dancer who played the queen (shown above) was really great at playing her part. She sneered and scoffed at everyone and not in the over-acting way that appears in most ballets.
The whole mad hatter scene was genius. Everything apart from the table in the middle which kept moving un-expectantly and very irritatingly when someone stepped on it. The humour and charm that exuded from the dancers was simply inspiring and again all the characters were very well played.

After all the flamingo croquet and the trial of the strawberry tart Alice's minder realised how much Alice had grown and how much she will grow and seemed to let go a little but still proceeded to guide her back through the lens. It ended quite suddenly and without real suspense or the usual drawn out romantic ballet endings that so many shows end with. No, it ended with a simple act of falling asleep whilst reading a book and Alice drifted off onto another adventure and the dance was over.

Almost perfect.