Alice in Wonderland

Cork Opera House ****

Spectacle triumphs in this Opera House production but not even Enda Kenny as the European caterpillar of the year can disguise the difficulty of uniting the classic story of Alice in Wonderland with the conventions of modern pantomime.

Writer and director Bryan Flynn might be forgiven for attempting a take on Lewis Carroll, but this is more like a burglary, and there isn’t a single joke delivered to catch Carroll’s touch, which is all joke.

The confusion caused by combining the narrative with the darker elements of Through the Looking Glass is exaggerated by unnecessary vulgarity and by a lot of fussy business going on in the background. However, the elaborately enchanting background relates more coherently than the script to the original fantasy.

Laid out on chess-board flooring, the set design by Yvonne Cronin and Michelle Kiely blazes with imaginative allusion and fun, and is beautifully matched by Joan Hickson’s costumes.

And let’s hear it for Jennie Readman, who puts Alice into a wig John Tenniel might have created, and who ensures that all the wigs and make-up look as if grown naturally on each head.

Equally, the lighting design from Michael Hurley and the sound from Peter Crudge flow seamlessly into the always frantic spectacle while Cormac O’Connor’s visual effects provide the kaleidoscopic sequences of entries and exits, vast extensions and dramatic shortenings that are required as Alice falls into wonderland or slides through the looking-glass.

The singing and dancing are among the other wonders in this wonderland, which include the almost ephemeral appearances of the Dodo and the Jabberwock (aka the Dragon of Shandon in obedience to the imperative to drag the story back to Cork).

In the hectic pace set by Valerie O’Leary’s hysterical Red Queen and by Michael Grennell’s relished role as the Knave of Hearts the story-line is sustained by Michael Joseph as the Mad Hatter.

Although this Alice from Claire O’Leary can ratchet her voice to the required screech she actually possesses an appealing sweetness of attitude and tone and sings with charming simplicity, a quality otherwise missing but not missed by the enthusiastic young audience.

Until January 20th