02/02/13……Alice in Wonderland – but not as we know it!

THE Oxford based professional company, Gobo Theatre Foundation, will be visiting The Players Theatre in Thame, at 7.45pm on Saturday, February 2, with a modern adaptation of Lewis Carroll?s Alice in Wonderland, simply called, Alice.

This adaptation is not as ?twee? as many earlier versions and provides a thought provoking story suitable for adults and older children.

The white rabbit as a hoodie-wearing yoof? The Queen of hearts as Alice?s own mother? Croquet as a bargaining stage in mourning? It’s Alice in Wonderland, but not as we know it. Alice is a new adaptation of Carroll?s story, by Yorkshire playwright Laura Wade, here performed by the Gobo Theatre Foundation.

The foundation is a charity as well as a theatre group, operating a ?fair paid is fair played? ethos to give acting opportunities as well as financial and career management advice to budding 16-25 year old actors. This is a rare helping hand in an industry whose cut throat competitiveness, combined with the recent evaporation of government support, is threatening the cultivation of future dramatic talent in this country.

Alice is updated, from a Victorian, hairband-sporting dreamer, to a modern day teenager whose elder brother has just died in a car crash. The play opens with the funeral reception in which a bewildered Alice staggers amongst an assorted array of emotionally absent parents, interfering school teachers and well-meaning relatives. As the clich