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| Alice (Lois Falshaw), Alice's Sister (Elizabeth Wheeler) photo credit Helen Brown |
The Castle Players, based in
Barnard Castle, have a fantastic reputation across the region for producing
high quality community theatre. Their productions range from winter touring shows
in local village halls, a two-night production in the Autumn to develop new
directors, regular readings in residential homes and their annual summer
production in the grounds of the magnificent Bowes Museum. Supporters of The
Castle Players have become used to the excellent productions of Shakespeare
over the years. This year, for their 31st Summer production, they
have taken the brave decision to try something completely different with Alice
in Wonderland.
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| Queen of Hearts (Bunny Forsyth) photo credit Helen Brown |
Opening with Lewis Carroll,
Angus Wheeler, explains he is finishing writing the story of Alice and invites
us to take the journey with Alice (Lois Falshaw). Through the journey we meet many
of the familiar weird and wonderful characters, which include the frantic White
Rabbit (Cal Baker), the slapstick of Tweedledee (Dan Richards) and Tweedledum
(Jake Moore), the comedy of The Cook (Trudi Dixon) and The Duchess (Sam
McCormack) and the terrifying Queen of Hearts (Bunny Forsyth) to name just a
few.
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| Caterpillar (Rhonda Hart-Davis) photo credit Helen Brown |
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| Mad Hatter (Ben Pearson), Queen of Hearts (Bunny Forsyth) photo credit Helen Brown |
After a steady start the
larger than life, colourful characters just kept on flowing onto the stage. The
Caucus Race was full of energy and exhausting to watch. Tweedledee and
Tweedledum looked as if they were having great fun, during their scene of slapstick.
The Caterpillar (Rhonda Hart-Davis) was absolutely wonderful, a stylish
performance with one the best costumes of the night. The Mock Turtle (Gordon
Duffy-McGhie) and the Gryphon (Andy Moorhouse) created a delightful partnership
and a scene the cast and audience clearly enjoyed with the Lobster Quadrille. The Mad Hatter (Ben Pearson) was just as mad as you would expect, delighting the audience through every entrance.
The costumes are amazing, the team
behind them have certainly worked their magic. You can also see how much love
and passion has gone into creating the set and props.
There were two parts of the
production which really stood out, firstly that was the community involvement, the
show in its nature creates lots of smaller roles giving the large number of parts.
The Castle Players have certainly embraced the words ‘community involvement’ it
won’t be long before there are more people involved than they can fit in the
audience. Finally, the true star of the night was Alice. WOW! Lois Falshaw truly
became Alice and owned the stage. Such a confident and delightful performance. I
am sure this is not the last we have seen of her on stage.
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| Alice (Lois Falshaw) photo credit Helen Brown |
Alice in Wonderland runs until
Saturday 13th July @19:30 with a Saturday matinee.
Tickets can be purchased
online at www.castleplayers.co.uk, by telephone 01833-631107, or in person at
The Witham, Barnard Castle.
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