‘This is the best Christmas show we have ever reviewed!’ was the verdict of number one child, a grin on her face as wide as a cat from Cheshire as the interval house lights awake us from our reverie, jolting us back to Brixton House from the subterranean work of Alice-tocracy Queen of the Rhyme in Alice in Wonderland, writes Frida, Woody and Ed Gray.
Brixton has always been a wonderland and arriving on the Underground and surfacing bewildered before the giant Brixton Christmas tree you must recalibrate to Brixton time. The neighbourhood has changed so much since we used to live here and the wonderful Brixton House Theatre is a real change for the good. A warm welcome awaits us as we find our seats only to realise we are right back where we were, on a Brixton Underground platform. Curiouser and curiouser.
Shanka Chaudhuri’s innovative minimal set brilliantly sets us up for the ride and is used to great effect throughout the play, perfectly evoking the labyrinthine network that connects our beautiful, diverse, mad, furious city. There are 102 tube station name jokes woven into the play to remind us where we are. We find 11-year-old Alice and her mother, the brilliant Toyin Ayedun-Alase, arguing on the platform. In a moment of madness, Alice takes control of her destiny and jumps on the train without her mother.
Fresh from the National Youth Theatre, Nkhanise Phiri plays Alice in her stage debut and her energy and craft are a joy to behold as she tries to make sense of a cast of strangely familiar characters that constantly stream through the tube carriage.
It’s testament to Director and Lead Writer Jack Bradfield and the creative team that it takes some time to realise this is a cast of only five actors, each as good as the next. The audience is laughing so much that the temperature in the room rises noticeably, especially whenever Khai Shaw’s Hammersmith appears with his giant hammer, comically muscular physique and mismatched voice. Nose played by Will Spence has them tickled in the aisles as he perpetually whisks out a perfume bottle of carefully selected fragrances to keep everyone calm – a welcome addition to any tube carriage- and Rosa Garland’s tortoise has us gleefully giggling.
After much soul searching Alice is true to her name and her rhyme, ‘Alice-tocracy Alice-tocracy I’m the queen of the Rhyme, Nothing’s stopping me!’, as she takes on the fearful Jabberwocky. I ask my 7-year-old son if he’s scared, ‘No’ he whispers as a small warm hand reaches mine. It’s a brilliant scene and the kind of magic you want from live theatre as it illuminates a perfect message for teenagers and adults alike – problems become bigger if you don’t tackle them head on, connect and communicate. Let’s hope some of that message gets through to the powers that be and the trains keep running and connecting us all this Christmas.
After an excellently devised fight sequence on top of a tube train, we exit through the buzzing theatre crowd to wander back through the streets of Brixton, through my own teenage years, and find ourselves on a Brixton Underground platform, happily jumping aboard a northbound Victoria line train to head home. Lewis Carroll would have taken great delight at this curious looking-glass moment as we sat in a tube carriage imagining we were on a stage in a tube carriage in a theatre. We were taking the message, the medium and the magic home in our hearts and that’s real theatre. Alice still reigns supreme in the 21st century.
Brixton House, 385 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, SW9 8GL until 31st December. Times: Varied. Check website for details. Admission: £15 – £28.
Booking: www.brixtonhouse.co.uk
