 Minstead playwright Nick Mellersh’s new play, The Real Alice, is to be performed in Oxford.
Organisers of Oxford’s annual Alice Day have invited Nick and his friends to perform at the prestigious Natural History Museum.
This year the event is on Saturday 10th July to celebrate that time in 1861 when Carroll first related the Alice stories during the historic boating trip.
The play tells the story of Alice Liddell’s idyllic childhood in an Oxford college and what happened next, when she grew up.
Alice fell in love and married Reginald Hargreaves of Cuffnells in Lyndhurst, where she lived for the next fifty years.
Nick wanted to find out more about the real Alice, who had lived near him.
His research lead him to tell her fascinating story based on known facts and fast disappearing local memories.
‘I felt there was a story that needed to be told,’ explained Nick.
Nick uses a technique combining narrative with live action from the Alice stories and her family life using a cast of lively local children against a changing background of images of past and current scenes and characters.
Alice, played by Elizabeth Pascoe, sensitively retells her fascinating story of loves and losses, kings and queens, real and imaginary, fact and fiction.
Alistair Banks plays the enigmatic young Lewis Carroll who fascinated children with his stories.
Carroll was in real life the serious academic, Revd. Charles Dodgson of Christ Church, Oxford.
Nick’s play poignantly depicts the Alice behind the stories.
It will appeal not just to those who love the books and want more but to anyone who enjoys a good play.
Local audiences will have an opportunity to see Nick’s specially adapted version at a preview of The Real Alice at St Michael and All Angels Church, Lyndhurst, on Thursday 8th July at 7pm.
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