#WONDERLAND SECRET WORLDS PORTING KIT FULL#
They were always there, full of quirky figures that helped to populate the busy borderland where real life shaded into the world of stories, and that is where they remained for the next 40-odd years. My own memories of the Alice books go back much further than my earliest memory of reading.
Although we might enjoy her feats of literary escapology, repeatedly wriggling out of the covers of her original book, we rarely stop to think about why it is Alice, rather than other fictional characters such as Heidi or Dorothy, who has come to exert such a powerful grip on the public imagination. Once again, Alice will prove to be as hard to pin down as a thought bubble. There will be exhibitions at the V&A Museum of Childhood and the British Library, a special set of stamps issued by the Royal Mail, and whole bookshelves of new publications. In her anniversary year, theatrical highlights include a highly inventive production of Alice’s Adventures Underground, which opens next month in the Vaults deep underneath Waterloo Station, and in July the Manchester international festival premiere of Damon Albarn’s musical Wonder.land, directed by Rufus Norris. Whether she is being viewed as an icon of innocence or an opportunity to play out more disturbing fantasies, the blank-faced little girl made famous by John Tenniel’s original illustrations has become a cultural inkblot we can interpret in any way we like.
Since the first publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 150 years ago, Lewis Carroll’s playful and puzzling work has spawned a whole industry, from films and theme park rides to products such as a “cute and sassy” Alice costume (“petticoat and stockings not included”).
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