“The most hilarious madcap fun” – Broadwayworld.com

This glorious production features breathtaking costuming and puppetry using ingenious stagecraft and limitless imagination, will thrill children and adults alike. Meet the White Rabbit, the eccentric Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and of course the boisterous Queen of Hearts as a cast of brilliant actors bring over 20 curious characters to life.

“The perfect holiday treat” – Stage Whispers

True to the original book, there is something for everyone with plenty of word play and pun-based humour that older kids and adults will enjoy, while younger children will love the colourful characters, charming puppetry and physical comedy (especially by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum!).

Alice in Wonderland
7 – 8 April (10.30am, 2pm and 6pm daily)
QPAC’s Concert Hall, South Brisbane
www.qtix.com.au

After sell-out seasons in 2017, Christopher Wheeldon’s madcap Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland© is coming to Brisbane.

Witness as Wheeldon translates the wit and charm of Lewis Carroll’s story into dance, with extravagant sets, magnificent costumes and an extraordinary score. Wonderland comes to life with puppetry, eye-bending illusions and playful costumes. Join Alice as she meets a twitchy White Rabbit, tap-dancing Mad Hatter and a tyrannical Red Queen in this family-friendly adventure.

Experience breathtaking visuals from Tony Award-winning designer Bob Crowley and a colourful score by Joby Talbot performed live by Queensland Symphony Orchestra. With the spectacle of Broadway, this ballet will transport you into the depths of your imagination.

It’s time to fall down the rabbit hole – don’t be late for this very important date!

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
25 February to 2 March 2019
QPAC, Brisbane
www.qpac.com.au

The enduring fascination with Carroll’s stories and characters uniquely traces the evolution of filmmaking, providing the perfect subject matter for Australia’s national film museum, ACMI, to illustrate our ongoing fascination with new visual technologies over more than a century. From the earliest optical toys to silent film, animation, puppetry, live-action cinema, videogames, CGI, 3D and beyond, WONDERLAND explores how the moving image has kept Alice and her stories in the public consciousness, reinvented in contemporary contexts and mediums.

“This latest ACMI-created Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition showcases the moving image adaptations of Carroll’s seminal works through celebrating the evolution of filmmaking, from the earliest optical toys through to new technologies,” said ACMI CEO & Director, Katrina Sedgwick. “With WONDERLAND ACMI has created an interactive exhibition where audiences explore the magic of film craft and its integral role embedding this much-loved story in our imaginations for generations.”

Commencing in Lewis Carroll’s drawing room, visitors are handed their own Lost Map of Wonderland, a physical and digital device unlocking surprising experiences during their exhibition journey and beyond. With their interactive map in hand, visitors wander the world of Wonderland, losing themselves in the Hallway of Doors, playing at the Queen’s Croquet Ground and taking part in a magical Mad Hatter’s Tea Party that comes to life before their very eyes. Along the way they will find more than 300 unique objects sourced from all around the world including first edition publications and illustrations, magic lantern projectors, concept drawings, animation cels, spectacular costumes, puppets, props and more.

Rich with inspiration for visual interpretation, Carroll’s tales have been the subject of more than 40 films and over 30 television programs. Today Alice remains an icon; omnipresent and continually relevant through her presence across music videos, video games, high fashion and advertising. WONDERLAND takes audiences on Alice’s journey through popular culture, demonstrating how artists, filmmakers and fans have returned to her story with the help of screen technologies for more than a century.

From the first screen adaptation by Cecil M Hepworth in 1903 to Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), WONDERLAND reveals the development of special effects from pre-cinematic entertainment to silent film, animation to puppetry, live-action cinema, videogames, CGI, 3D and beyond. Among the films featured; Norman Z McLeod’s 1933 version featuring a young Cary Grant; Lou Bunin’s Alice Au Pays des Merveilles (1949) which almost did not make it to the screen; Jan Svankmajer’s acclaimed Alice (1988); the Quay Brothers’ experimental Alice in Not So Wonderland (2007); and television versions by the BBC and NBC, and much more.

Made in Melbourne by the team at ACMI, this wholly original exhibition brings the museum’s extensive creative and curatorial expertise together with a leading team of Australian collaborators, creating an immersive experience complete with playful environments and bespoke digital activities that draw upon the wonder and curiosity of Carroll’s stories. Together with ACMI curators Jessica Bram and Sarah Tutton, exhibition and theatrical designer Anna Tregloan, digital creative studios Sandpit, Grumpy Sailor and Mosster Studio, sound designer Byron Scullin and composer Cornel Wilczek, as well as lighting designer Niklas Pajanti, have designed an interactive world to delight and surprise adults and children alike.

A must-see this winter, the world premiere season of ACMI’s WONDERLAND exhibition will run from Thursday 5 April to Sunday 7 October 2018.

Wonderland Exhibition
ACMI Melbourne
5 April – 7 October 2018
www.acmi.net.au

This vivid approach isn’t just limited to the visuals either. The landscapes and creatures are integral to a story that also expands the mind. One thinks that the story’s original author Lewis Carroll might have gotten hold of some of the Blue Caterpillar’s best stash before pen was put to paper.

Australian actor Mia Wasikowska as Alice, starts out as a dour young girl sent off to marry a man she doesn’t love and through the magic of the story becomes a luminous woman ready to take on the world. It really is a girl power tale for the ages (maybe minus all the drug references though). Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter gets to channel all his inner craziness and is a real scene-stealer.

Having read the original text so far back in my past I can’t attest to any of its devotion to the original story, I can only state that giving someone with as much imagination as Tim Burton free reign to capture the vision in his mind’s eye has helped to create one of the most visually arresting films of all time. It’s also to the film’s credit that the storyline is every bit the equal to the visual extravagance.

Rob Hudson
www.disney.go.com