Alice
PS
“Following our tremendous success last year with Mike Thorne’s outstanding masterpiece Motorway Magic,” the programme trumpets, apparently deaf to any possibility it might be overselling itself, “we conceded to popular demand (that was nice of us) and proudly present Alice, an original pantomime by writer, Pam Love.”
Quite how a show featuring a central character called Alice, a White Rabbit, a Jabberwock, Caterpillars, a Mock Turtle, not to mention a Cheshire fucking Cat, can call itself original is happily lost now in the mists of time. (I speak as one who plundered not only Andrew Lloyd Webber but also Lerner and Loewe for the settings for the songs.) But at least we had the grace to call our King and Queen, the Duke and the Duchess. I played the former, Denis, and had come up with a nifty little ad lib. Behind the Duchess’s back at one point I whispered to the audience that I would like to send her off on a cruise. Greenham Common and the controversial siting of American Cruise missiles there was a big ongoing story at the time, and about as political as I ever got back then. But some people got it, so that was nice.
I see the programme also acknowledges Backwell Playhouse for ‘Loan of toadstools’ and – a sign of the times – Debenhams of Bristol for kindly supplying the balloons. Debenhams are sadly no longer with us, of course. Shame. Damn shame.