“Of course that’s how it begins: a harmless fairy tale to pass the hours”
When Alice Liddell Hargreaves met Peter Llewelyn Davies at the opening of a Lewis Carroll exhibition in 1932, the original Alice in Wonderland came face to face with the original Peter Pan. In John Logan’s remarkable new play, enchantment and reality collide as this brief encounter lays bare the lives of these two extraordinary characters.
The play tells of the meeting between the real people who inspired the famous fictional characters of Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland written by J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) respectively. Both the writers were friends of the respective children’s families and each had created a story and characters to entertain the children. Dodgson famously telling the story whilst rowing the three daughters of Henry Liddell on the River Isis at Oxford. His story featured a bored little girl named Alice who goes looking for an adventure. Alice Liddell loved it so much she asked Dogson to write it down for her. It was published three years later in 1865 when Alice was 13-years old.
Peter Pan first appeared in public on stage at Christmas in 1904, in the stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. The play was subsequently adapted, expanded and published as a novel in 1911 when Peter Davis was 14-years old.
By the time the real Alice and the real Peter meet, Alice is 80-years old and Peter 35-years old. Yet they have an incredible shared experience. That of having their own lives overshadowed by their more famous counterparts. And it’s this that John Logan’s new play, ‘Peter and Alice’, addresses.
Judi Dench plays Alice Liddell and Ben Whishaw plays Peter Davis, with Ruby Bentall playing Alice in Wonderland and Olly Alexander playing Peter Pan.
Local resident, Ruby Bentall, plays Alice in Wonderland in the production. She recently played Gretel in Katy Mitchell's Hansel and Gretel. Her NT credits also include Grief, The Miracle, DNA and Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat. Her TV work includes The Paradise, Larkrise to Candleford, New Tricks, Lost in Austen and Oliver Twist. Holborn Voice caught her with her one sunny afternoon, not by a rabbit hole, but just as she came out of rehearsals
HV: What is Alice like in the play?
RB: She’s very much like the traditional Alice, the one from the original John Tenniel woodcut illustrations. I wear a blue dress, apron and long blonde wig, dancing around the real Alice and the real Peter. It’s the Alice that I know because of the Disney film.
HV: What drew you to wanting to be in the play?
RB: Well, what can I say – Judi Dench and Ben Wishaw. They’re both legends. It’s very exciting. And I loved the Alice books as a child. It’s all a bit of a dream come true – in a way.
HV: Is it a happy play, a ‘Disney’ play? What can an audience expect?
RB: Oh, no, no. It’s much darker than that. It’s a fascinating insight into the lives of the real Alice and Peter and how, really, the stories we love to read today totally messed them up. Their meeting is amazing. They both had similar experiences, but their characters are really different. Alice took all the attention on board and, eventually, dealt with it – in a glass half-full way. Peter on the other hand had difficulties – he’s more a glass-half empty person. The end of the play is deeply moving.
HV: The play is at the Noel Coward Theatre in St Martins Lane. How local are you? How do you get home from the theatre? Is there a rabbit hole in Trafalgar Square?
RB: Hahaha. Well I live very close to Holborn Tube so, usually, I walk. Or just up to the 19 or 38 bus stop in St Martins Lane, just past Shaftsbury Avenue. But I prefer to walk.
Alice and Peter opens at the Noel Coward Theatre on 9th March 2013 and runs until 1st June 2013
Director: Michael Grandage; Set and Costume Designer: Christopher Oram
Lighting Designer: Paule Constable; Composer and Sound Designer: Adam Cork
http://www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk/Tickets/PAA/PAA.asp
Box Office: 0844 482 5141(Booking fee of £2.50 per transaction)
Personal callers Mon-Sat 10am-curtain up (No booking fee)
Telephone Mon-Sat 9am-10pm, Sun 10am-8pm
Performance times for PETER AND ALICE:
Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm
Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
NB no Wednesday matinees for Peter and Alice
Seat Prices
£10, £27.50, £57.50
Day Seats
A Limited number of tickets at £10 each available daily from 10.30a.m., to be purchased in person, from the Box Office. Maximum 2 tickets per person. Excludes certain performances
Standing
£10 tickets available on the day once the performance is sold out
In Rehearsal Ruby Bentall as Alice in Wonderland photocredit Marc Brenner