Mission Statement: Noel Coward




"The Most  I've had is just a talent to amuse": Noel Coward

 

Suicide Is Dangerous

(picture courtesy of Clipart ETC)

 Battling tiresome insomnia the night before the Queensland Theatre Company’s new production of Romeo and Juliet opened I dipped into one of my favourite theatre references, The Everyman Book of Theatrical Anecdotes.

How wonderful to garnish such a night with a chuckle or two.

The work, edited by the splendid Donald – now Sir Donald - Sinden ,  covers a rich history of the British theatre from Elizabethan Theatre to the almost present day .

I discovered what a  wonderful unaffected man Sir Donald was when he came to Brisbane with his Shakespearean pals – including Ian Richardson, Derek Jacobi and  Diana Rigg – to give us The Hollow Crown.

The Hollow Crown is a delightful feast of speeches, stories and more covering the monarchy from William the Conqueror to Queen Victoria.

We had both recently given up smoking and promised our respective wives that the nasty weed would never touch our lips again, so naturally we snuck out the back at the after party and shared a puff.

Very naughty but somehow satisfying.

Back to Romeo and Juliet.

Stumbled upon the American actress Anna Cora Mowatt, who discovered the hard way that suicide was dangerous as she played Juliet in Cincinatti as a young woman.

Anna Cora – known as Lily – was apparently a tad forgetful and would often

resort to grabbing Romeo’s knife for the all important death scene.

One night she expressed such energy and enthusiasm that the dead lover was moved to  come back to life and shatter the silence with: “Look out it’s very sharp.”

That wasn’t the end of it, however, as educator and theatre identity Eric Woollencott Barnes recalls in this account of a hasty property man giving the actress the first bottle which came to hand:

“The bottle was duly turned over to Juliet on the stage, some whispered injunction of which Anna Cora caught only the words…’so take care’. She thought no more about the matter until she swallowed the potion.

“The she noticed a brilliant red stain on her fingers when they came away from her mouth.

“Viewed from the audience it most have been very picturesque.

“Lily’s own reactions were less pleasant, when at the end of the close of the scene the prompter rushed on crying: ‘Good gracious you have been drinking from my bottle of ink!’

"She smiled bravely and uttered the words of the dying wit under similar circumstances: ‘Let me swallow a sheet of blotting paper.’ “

The present production at the Playhouse Theatre, which is I understand both red ink and blotting paper free, continues till May 13.

 I will be posting something on the production, which features Melanie Zanetti and Thomas Larkin as Juliet’s Romeo under the direction of Jennifer Flowers, within a day or so.

Tidbit: Famous Last Words

"Umm. Very tasty. Can I have another drink of that," Socrates.

Tidbit: Oneupmanship Onedownmanship

Man ahead of Oscar Wilde at US customs: "No I have nothing to declare."

Oscar Wilde at US customs: " I have nothing to declare but my genius."

Man behind Oscar Wilde at US customs:"I do declare that man is insufferable. He hasn't made one straight comment since we left Southhampton. Bugger him."

Midsummer Music

Helena (Cora Bissett) and Bob (Matthew Pidgeon) look a little concerned in Midsummer and so they should as the mayhem, madness and music continue.

Midsummer a Play with Songs: A Kinky Review

Midsummer (A Play with Songs) Features Cora Bissett, Matthew Pidgeon. Written and directed by David Greig for Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre. La Boite, Brisbane. Season runs till April 28.

The Scots (along with the Irish) have become pretty adept at staging the oppressed, depressed and repressed thanks to a long historical association with the neighbouring Sassenachs.

There’s something about living next door to someone who keeps beating you up – and the English have been doing that to the Scots for centuries – which can makes a people curiously inventive and expressive.

The production comes from Edinburgh, the city that gave us those stars of the resurrection men in eighteen hundred and frozen to death, Burke and Hare, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Deacon Brodie

  

This is one of the world’s great drama centres both on and off stage.

So it should come as no surprise that Edinburgh’s theatre scene is thriving and few are doing it better than the Traverse company with David’s Grieg two-hander Midsummer (A Play With Songs).

The stroke of brilliance lies in the fact that the oppression lesson has been learnt so well that the show’s main characters, Helena (Cora Bissett) and Bob (Matthew Pidgeon), don’t need the services of an outsourced villain.

They’ve developed the skills needed to beat themselves up as the two unlikely desperate drop-outs meet in a singles bar on a Friday night and disappear down the black hole of a long lost weekend, singing all the way.

Watching the show, I was reminded of a classic line from another song (not in the play), which goes along the lines of (and I paraphrase Jeff Beck’s classic ‘60s Hi Ho Silver Lining) going down a bumpy hillside when your tyres are flat.

That’s exactly what small time crim Bob and ‘wonder-if-I am-pregnant’ discarded married man’s bit on the side, Helena, do in Midsummer as they slip on one scary banana skin after another.

Nowadays my Baby Boomer definition of a lost weekend includes overlooking key items on the shopping list, forgetting where I put the car, falling over the dog, wrecking the lawn mower and following asleep after a couple of wines during Gardening Australia.

In Bob and Helena’s wacky Gen Y world a lost weekend is – thank God – much more kinky as the wee man’s Bonnie and Clyde  - now smart  Douggie – kick start their self-destructive spree by stealing the gangster’s swag.

Now, I haven’t had the benefits of a criminal education, but I have a sneaking feeling that the number one rule in Crime for Dummies is keep you’re filthy hands off Mr. Big’s loot, (if life is something you want to wake up to in the morning.)

From there our lovely, suicidal, uke strumming glamour pair goes on a downward spiral, which includes:

Hanging out with Goths.

Drinking away whatever senses they had in the first place.

Learning little or no real insight at a philosophy conference.

And (in addition to boring old one on one sex) hanging around with a bunch of weirdoes in a Japanese rope bondage club.

It’s a scenario which makes you want to go out more often and catch a play at La Boite or even …..?  Oh no maybe not. In real-life, it’s safer, and funnier, to watch others bend over backwards to be rooted unmercifully.

Finally, there are the songs from Gordon McIntyre’s ditties, including the Hangover Song, neatly reproduced in the program.

In the end we look back on Bob and Helana’s fun feast and wonder. Scotland the Brave or Scotland the Foolish? A bit of both perhaps.

And lastly not only are messes Bissett and Pidgeon a ton of fun, they’re pedigree Scots. They must be as they have both appeared in Taggart. Who can ask for more?

   

Annie Forever Waiting In The Wings




Little Annie's Orphans

 

Annie: An Overview Review

Annie. Stars Anthony Warlow, Nancye Hayes, Todd McKenney,  Chloe Dallimore, Alan Jones and sharing the Annie role Xanthe Dunning, Anita Munro, Chloe Thiel. Original creators Thomas Meehan (book), Charles Strouse (music), Martin Charnin (lyrics). Lyric Theatre, Brisbane. Tickets sell till May 13.

                                         

Little Orphan Annie, in some shape or another, will forever be waiting in the wings.

I am not saying the 1977 musical Annie is a show for everyone – in fact I suspect it’s a show I could effortlessly miss myself – but if it is coming back then this team is the one to breathe life into it.

Australian producer and two-time Tony award winner, John Frost, knows how to stage a fireproof show and this one will have the box office thundering like the 1812.

There’s a who’s who of musical theatre talent leading the charge against the backdrop of a creative team to match the best in the world and, for once, I do include Broadway.

Brisbane is awash with critics and ordinary families who can concoct enough adjectives to extol the glories of everyone from the charm encrusted Warlow to the vintage professionalism of Ms Hayes.

Then they’ll be superlatives aplenty for the little girl orphan troop, three butter-wouldn’t-melt in their mouths Annies, two four-legged pooches and, perhaps, even a  kind word or two for love-him-or-hate-him radio jock, turned FDR, Alan Jones.

This is a staged chocolate box designed to clog up the emotional arteries with waves of touchy-feely sentiment until the tide of escapism finally goes out and hard-hearted reality returns.

So rather then dwell on what East Londoners
call, ‘the bleedin’ obvious,’ I thought I’d take a closer look  at the Orphan Annie legend born in 1885.

That’s when US poet James Whitcomb Riley took a  young girl, whose father was killed  in the American Civil War, as the inspiration for a poem known as the Elf Child and later Little Orphan Annie.

The girl was Little Orphan Allie, who morphed into Annie, thanks to one of those seemingly endless typos which change the course of popular culture.

Riley’s celebration of a wealth of positive attributes for children, including an optimistic outlook, quickly became a children’s favourite and in turn led to the much loved Raggedy Ann Doll.

It even spawned a 1918 silent movie and was an ingredient in the recipe for Harold Gray’s popular Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip, which debuted August 5, 1924.

Gray, who had also been inspired by a ‘ragamuffin’ he bumped into on the streets of Chicago, ‘who impressed him with her commonsense, know-how and ability to take care of herself, originally found selling the concept very much the hard knock life.

But just like show biz stalwarts in the popular bio-pics of the 1930s and ‘40s, never looked back once he was given a break in the New York Daily News. Little Orphan Annie was eventually syndicated across the country.

One of the strip’s most curious characters is Oliver ‘Daddy’ Warbucks  (Warlow in the new Australian production) who appears to have none of the attributes associated with a contemporary benefactor.

He’s a baldheaded uncomprising capitalist with the repellent name Warbucks – doesn’t that remind you of someone? Oh, yes Lex Luther – who in the original strip made his fortune manufacturing arms in World War One.

Gray, who didn’t shy away from political themes such as organised labour, FDR’s New Deal and communism, had a healthy disregard for anyone – in government or the unions – who interfered with private wealth.

And some claim the modern Annie is out of touch with contemporary western society?

The strip continued until 2010 (when it limped out of existence as it only appeared in 10 newspapers), but in the meantime Messes Meehan, Strouse and Charnin turned it into a hit musical in 1977, although their journey to Broadway success was hardly any yellow brick road.

While Little Orphan Annie might not remain a red-headed Depression-spawned munchkin, trapped in a 1933 time warp, I suspect the core drive of the piece will live on albeit revamped.

There was, for example, a report in Variety at the beginning of last year that US movie star Will Smith wanted to re-invent the show as a vehicle for his daughter Willow Smith.

And, oh yes, I have just caught up with the news that a revival of Annie is due to open on Broadway later in the year. For more http://www.anniethemusical.com/news

Little Annie never aged in Gray’s strip and I doubt she ever will as heroes – even orphans - never do.   

An Extract From Michael Burns Kennedy's The Cuckoo Song

At 2.20am on April 15, 1912, RMS Titanic sank with the loss of 1514 from a contingent of 2224 passengers and crew. In his short story, The Cuckoo Song, Michael Burns Kennedy's storytelling character, Constance Bennett, gives her father an account of a little girl, Thora, and her lap dog Queenie who were among those saved. This is an extract. The full story can be read on: http://www.makingwhoopee.blogspot.com.au/



“Darlings. my beatiful daughter, Thora, Mummy .
" It looks as if the ship is about to …
"Well, the captain is being careful.
" After all this is the Unsinkable Ship. And I am the Unsinkable Daddy aren’t I?

“Come on let’s get a few things together. We’ll send you for a little joy ride in a lifeboat and you’ll be back in no time. No time at all.”

Constance, (the storyteller)  who was seriously considering becoming a parent counselor when she grew-up, continued with the parenting theme of the story, which had become a consuming passion.

“It seems as if there’s nothing like a disaster of the most monumental proportions for focusing the mind and helping daddies, especially daddies like Mr. Eastcreek, get a sense of what’s important and, of course, what’s not,” she judged.

The women got a few belongings together, but as Mummy Eastcreek opened Daddy Eastcreek’s sock draw he staid her hand.

“Don’t bother packing anything for me because I’ve got to stay and have a drink or two with the captain and keep him company. I might be here a little while,” Daddy Eastcreek said gently.

“Oh all right George, but not too much to drink,” Mummy Eastcreek responded turning a blind eye to what Thora was beginning to comprehend.

“No more than two whiskeys. I am not going to be floating around on the sea out there while you’re living it up on board. Sometimes it seems as if life is one long social occasion as far as you are concerned.”

“Oh Daddy,” said Thora with so much feeling even Daddy and Mummy Eastcreek couldn’t ignore it

“Now Thora you’ve got to be brave,” Daddy said.

“I want you to put that dress on that you wore coming aboard and I think in the circumstances that Queen Beth (the dog), I mean Queenie Butterfly, Queenie, might just fit in the pocket.

“Just make sure that she doesn’t snore. I’m not sure if the other passengers would understand as places on the lifeboats are in short supply and it’s women and children to the fore.”

Even Constance (the storyteller) became reflective, and somewhat becalmed, as she warmed to the emotional gravity and humanity of her own narrative.

She was almost breaking as she explained now Daddy Eastcreek, who seemed strangely disconnected, tried to take his daughter in his arms in a display of affection, but after a life-time of stiffness found tenderness too tough.

She said he seemed awkward and wooden.

Than, as an alternative gesture of closeness and intimacy, he picked up Queenie and held her close.

“Queenie long may you reign and look after my daughter as if she were your own princess royal,” he whispered.

“I will look out for you both wherever I am, I promise. I used to think today was the most important day in the world, but now I know tomorrow is paramount. I am putting you in charge of all my daughter’s tomorrows Queenie.”

Then he did something out of character. He held Queenie tight and kissed her on the crown on her perfectly domed head.

“Guard my daughter well.”

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,” Thora said as if it were some kind of mantra that would save the situation or more likely a piece of string that would make sure there were bound together for all time.

“Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,”

For the first time in her young life Thora knew that whatever he had said and done her father really did love her, and that deep down he was caring and good.

Then Daddy Eastcreek quietly took Thora and Mummy to the lifeboats, hugged them warmly, and within a fraction of a tear-filled moment disappeared into the swirling crowd .

The clarity of this thought was only matched by the bitter dry chill in the air. Daddy Eastcreek disappeared into the throng of dignified humanity, which quietly ebbed and flowed around the decks as it waited for oblivion to come with one last big wave.

Constance paused so she and her Dad could wallow in the warm waters of this effect.

Later on in the lifeboat, Thora, and the others watched in frozen horror as the large ship – the one they called Unsinkable (lights flashing on and off) – was taken into the bosom of the cruel, cold sea, like a mother reclaiming its wounded dying cub.

Meanwhile, Thora was sitting in the lifeboat shaking her left leg until a women, who found the exercise annoying, said.

“What is that child doing? What are you doing child? Don’t you know we’re in the middle of a tragedy and all at sea?” in a tut-tutting style, so common in elderly spinster aunts from that era.

“She’ll have us all in the water If she’s not careful,” added the crewman who enjoyed feeling equal to the first class passenger, even in a moment of tragedy.

The small party, however, had other concerns as a terrible mist made it difficult to see out and when a horn was heard in the distance no amount of shouting had any affect in drawing attention to the lifeboat.

Soon all the passengers were fearful that they may never be found and might perish, despite leaving the Unsinkable Ship. They were exhausted. Thora was among the first to fall asleep. Then the passengers were amazed to hear the strangest fog horn they’d ever heard. It sounded, said one of them, loud but musical.

“It’s like a, like, like the trumpet section of an orchestra at the promenade concerts under the baton of Sir Henry Wood,” said the first class woman who generally fell asleep at concerts, even during the trumpet section.

“Um,” added the crewman who had only ever been to the music hall.

But the noise wasn’t coming from outside the boat. It was coming from inside the boat. Or was it?

Everyone looked around and then up and suddenly it seems there was a picture postcard old seaman high above them in some heavenly maritime chariot.

Constance said that line loudly, with a sense of triumph in her voice
"Bimey. I don’t know what you got down there folks,” chuckled the Cockney boson.

But I would never have found you without that, well I don't know what. Alls I can calls it is a bleedin' Oh I don't know. Something I once heard in the Blarney country. 

Oh yes, a leprechaun's trumpet I would say if I was to say anything at all. Cos I'm a modest kind of bloke. Ha, ha, ha. Come on now you've had a difficult one all right but we'll have ya safe and sound and warm with a cuppa inside ya in half a mo."

John Wayne as a Roman Centurion in the movie The Greatest Story Ever Told

Director Stevens once asked John Wayne (see Twit Kennedy's Favourite April Tweets below)  to deliver a Biblical story line with more awe and it all came out elongated and slow as, “Aaa-www-eee. Truly this must be the son of Gaud.” Now the Duke is part of the world of twitter.

A Nest of Twitters: Strictly for the Birds

When I first heard of twitter I wondered if a tweet in capitals would be  a squawk, because that’s my typical reaction to the ridiculous.

The idea of sending a 140-character message seemed an absurd waste of time, and when a friend explained it was for fans to track celebrity, I switched off completely.

Now I have two twitter accounts, in addition to a couple of blogs, and having a ton of fun – as we used to say at school – tweeting instant one and two-liners.

I have what I call my straight twitter - @Dak101Kennedy – which compliments this OCS on-line diary – and my bent version, @OldGrim1, which indulges stupid flights of fancy.

I even cross-reference from time to time crediting @Dak as Dr Jekyll and @ Old Grim, who has more chips on his shoulder then a French fry fest, as Mr. Hyde.

Yes, I have joined the 140 million subscribers or so, who tweet somewhere in the region of 340 million micro messages daily, and I try to keep @Dak focused on the arts and entertainment scene in Brisbane and beyond.

(Twitter came onto the scene back in 2006 thanks to a chap called Jack Dorsey, so six years to catch up with the new technology isn’t bad. 
The motor car first appeared at the turn of the 20^th century, but I didn’t catch up with that until the late 1970s) 

My @Dak twitter suits my OCS diary as they seem to work in tandem.

Sorry, I hate the words blog and bloggers  as they sound like someone being sucked into quick sand or, even worse, some sort of indescribable indecent act.

“He went blogging in the marshes you know and never came back,” springs to mind

 Or maybe.

“Society, quite rightly, believes blogging in public to be a heinous and unacceptable crime Mr. Kennedy. Guilty as charged.”

While I unashamedly use my twitter to promote OCS and my weekly visits to the 612ABC studios for theatre chats with leading breakfast host Spencer (Howson), at the ungodly hour of 640am, I also try to make them engaging and entertaining (with mixed success).

Some of my tweets have been floating in this weather-beaten head of mine for more than four decades, but, unfortunately, 140 character social networking allows subscribers to do little more than convey the message.

Sometimes, I feel as if I’d like to say more or, more often, explain why I’ve opted for some line or other, but it’s too difficult.

I avoid multi-messages – I’ve seem them on twitter and they tend to be broken up and confusing – so I work hard to keep my stuff tight.

The only exception is the Saturday Dak’s Weekend Trivia Tweet, where I opt for an intro, the tidbit, and a concluding appropriate sign-off tweet.

So I thought from time to time I’d indulgence myself – after all I have said this is a diary rather than an on-line paper or magazine – and regurgitate a handful of April tweets, complete with background notes.

So given that I haven’t get any competition from 140 million other OCS scribes - and in keeping with my brief to keep postings short – I am going to indulge myself in Nest of Tweets 2: The Birds are Back and They’re Pecking! Next post. A bird in a nest (courtesy of Fotosearch) hatching @OldGrim

 

Twit Kennedy’s Favourite April Tweets

Tweet: Action is what happens, while suspense is what we think might happen. Suspense trumps action.

Please Explain (PE): This came after seeing the TV re-make of the boys’ own classic The 39 Steps starring Rupert Penry-Jones (Spooks) as Richard Hannay and Lydia Leonard. This polished  2008 TV movie production had plenty of ambiance and was quite engaging, but lacked the suspense that made Hitchcock’s 1935 outing with Robert Donat and Madeline Carroll a classic. Still better than Kenneth More (1959) and Robert Powell (1978).

Tweet: Director Stevens once asked John Wayne (see pic top)  to deliver a line with more awe and it all came out elongated and slow as, “Aaa-www-eee Truly this must be the son of Gaud.”

PE: This was the Easter weekend trivia twitter and came courtesy of the George Stevens directed, The Greatest Story Ever Told,1965, peppered with Hollywood stars from the era. The Duke played a Roman Centurion standing at the foot of the cross and I guess it wasn’t one of his typical roles. He  gave it his best shot to coin a phrase. When I first heard this anecdote Wayne had recently made his Vietnam war film the Green Berets, 1968, and it was fashionable to belittle and mock him. Today his work stands in much higher stead.

Tweet: George Bernard Shaw was asked during World War Two what he was doing for the fight for civilisation and replied: “I am the civilisation they are fighting for.” Variation on a theme.

PE: This came about as a result of catching ABC612 presenter Steve Austin’s introduction into an arts story one morning. He quoted Churchill responding to his finance minister’s announcement that he would cut funding to the arts for the war effort. Churchill relied: “Then what are we fighting for?” It stuck me that there were lots of quotes and anecdotes in the arts – and other areas of life – which were similar. However, it could be argued on the one hand that Churchill never mentioned GBS. Maybe the playwright  noticed and decided to redress the balance?

Tweet: Would Van Gough have got into self-harm if he had been given a sympathetic ear?

PE: Just been watching a documentary on Van Gough which prompted three or four lines, but this one most tickled  my fancy. I was also impressed with the fact that when the great painter volunteered to move into the mental hospital at Saint Paul-de-Mausole his brother, Theo, asked that he be allowed his painting materials and half a litre of wine each day. I would have insisted on at least a litre.

Tweet: Been struggling to get into my own blog for the past three days like a drunk breaking into his own home because he lost his door key.

PE: That’s true. I did spend much of three working days trying to break into my own diary so I could post. It turned out because I have two of the darned things, I’d got all my pass words mixed up. I was told I was lucky not to have lost the lot. The line also brought back a memory of the night number one son was born, I got a little drunk, lost my door key, and had to break into my own home. No. I am not going to say these jotting are now my babies.

So as you see, Dear Reader, there’s more things between heaven and twitter. Now I must catch the cyber post.

The Queensland Ballet's Alice in Wonderland

Robert McMillan and Rian Thompson as the Tweedlees - Dee and Dum - along with Alice Bianca Scudamore. Photo: Ken Sparrow.

A Curious & Curiouser 2012 Nonsense: Apologies to Lewis Carroll & John Bryom.

I was wandering around the supermarket – in the diary section as it happens (just south of the flavoured yoghurts) - when this complete and utter stranger tapped me on the shoulder and asked me where he could find Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

I pointed to an aisle and said: ‘Try down there, about half way down next to the cooking nuts.’

Then he said what I expected him to say all the time, well, as much of the time as he could spare, as time and tide wait for no man.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,

They quite forgot their quarrel.

I then half smiled nervously, gave a pronounced nod of my head and made sure my mouth was closed tight, as he muttered ‘dolt’ turned sharply on his heels and marched off like a purposefully sergeant major.

Some way down the corridor – near the flavoured milk if you must know – he walked straight into a harassed women’s trolley and sent her small child sitting atop flying into the air.

Luckily, the little fellow landed on a display for marshmallows and I felt smug in the knowledge that a supermarket was indeed a strange place where odd people did curious things.

There ends On Centre Stage’s salute to Alice In Wonderland, but, as Molly used to say, do yourself a favour and catch the Queensland Ballet’s Alice In Wonderland (which incidentally has nothing to with the above flight of fancy)  

I

Alice Liddell Snapped by Lewis Carroll and Later in Life Looking Content

http://oncentrestage.blogspot.com.au/

While the 1986 movie Dreamchild– penned by Dennis Potter – suggests that Lewis Carroll’s inspiration for his Alice in Wonderland stories had a tortured later life, there’s little in the biographical notes to support that theory.

Alice Pleasance Liddell was born May 4, 1852 and was known for much of her adult life as Alice Hargreaves.

 Alice Liddell was the fourth child of Henry Liddell, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford and his wife Lorina. She had two older brothers, Harry (born 1847) and Arthur (born 1850, who died in 1853), and an older sister Lorina (born 1849). She also had six younger siblings, including her sister Edith (born 1854) with whom she was close.

At the time of her birth, Liddell's father was the headmaster of Westminster School but soon after appointed to the deanery of Christ Church, Oxford.

The Liddell family moved to Oxford in 1856 and met Charles Dodgson while he was photographing the cathedral on April 25 1856.

He became a close friend of the Liddell family. Alice grew up primarily in the company of the two sisters nearest to her in age: Lorina, who was three years older, and Edith, who was two years younger.

Alice Liddell married Reginald Hargreaves on September 15 1880, at the age of 28.

They had three sons: Alan Knyveton Hargreaves and Leopold Reginald "Rex" Hargreaves (killed in action in World War 1) and Caryl Liddell Hargreaves, who survived to have a daughter of his own.

Hargreaves inherited a considerable fortune, and was a local magistrate and also played cricket for Hampshire. Alice became a noted society hostess. She died in 1934, eight years after her husband.

A mostly happy carefree life it seems. Accept, of course, for the tragedy of World War 1, which went to the heart of almost ever family in Britain and, of course, many other countries including Australia. 

A Curiouser Review: Alice in Wonderland

   

Alice in Wonderland. Choreographed by Francois Klaus. Queensland Ballet. Playhouse House Theatre. Continues till April 14. Photograph Queen of Hearts (Kathleen Doody) and King of Hearts (Gareth Belling). Photograph: Ken Sparrow.

Like  most who have caught up with Queensland Artistic Director Francois Klaus' re-working of his own 2007 hit Alice in Wonderland, I was enchanted with the production.

I loved its sense of innocence, charm, humour and wit drawn from Lewis Carroll’s magical nonsense tales (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass first published in 1865 and 1871 or ‘72) and came out of the Playhouse feeling uplifted.

I could wax lyrical, weaving phrases and paragraphs into adoring tributes about the artists (including four young Alices), creatives such as set and costume designer Richard Jeziorny and lighting director Glenn Hughes as well, of course, choreographer Francois Klaus.

However, I am not into taking the route of a conventional review, but rather consumed with following that brisk cheeky 'Iam late-Iam late' White Rabbit into the mystical borrow which revealved Tweedledum and Tweedledee, The Red Queen, Humpty Dumpty, the Mad Hatter and the wonderful Cheshire Cat among others.

I want to go behind the scenes and explore, for at least a short while, the sometimes controversial world of Lewis Carroll whom within the refined cloisters of Oxford was known as the Reverend Charles Dodgson.

Dodgson (1832-’98) is an unlikely candidate for the title ‘greatest children’s writer of the Victorian era’(which produced so many talented scribes) being equally well known as a mathematician, portrait photographer, lecturer and crashing bore when he gave his annual sermon with a profound stutter.

AD Klaus quite rightly says in his Choreographer’s Notes that the relationship between Dodgson and the little girl, who inspired the Alice stories, Alice Liddell, is secondary to the cast of wonderful characters and their totally engaging stories.

Still I, like so many other students of these fine works, am captivated by the real-life story of Dodgson who came from a staid background peppered with figures mostly drawn to the English religious establishment.

Dodgson was living a conventional life in an ivory tower existence when he first met the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, 10-year-old Alice Liddell and her siblings, through a friendship with her mother Lorina Liddell.

He would take them out rowing – only Edwardians loved messing about on the river more then the Victorians – and entertain them with wonderful out-this-world nonsense tales.

There’s some who say that Dodson’s stutter, which made his required annual sermon a pain, disappeared when he was talking to children, but this, like so much other Dodgson mythological, is hotly disputed.

Then there’s the pictures.

Dodgson was at the forefront of the new art form and, like so many other Victorians, liked to photograph children as fairies and in other provocative ways.

Think Bill Henson.
http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/18/Bill_Henson/

This has added to the fuel to the fire of debate about his relationship with Children – even Mrs Liddell was said to be concerned – but the majority of commentators believe that Dodgson was a benign figure whose connection to children was  innocent.

Much of the debate centres on what might have been going through his head and who can really tap into such an imaginative mind that was with us for 65 years, and vanished from this place more then a century ago?

These themes have, understandably, been explored in books, plays and films including Dennis Potter’s magnificent movie script Dreamchild (1986) which feature some of Jim Henson’s wonderful re-creating of Carroll characters coming back to haunt an aging Alice.

My stand is that Carroll was an innocent who found it easier to communicate with children then adults, because they embraced the wonderful topsy-turvy world that seemed so straight forward to him.

To me suggesting that Carroll had a ambition to foster a dark side of his personality on little children is as distasteful as suggesting that the late Steve Irwin was cruel to animals.

Carroll’s love – if love is the appropriate word – was the genuine, unforced affection of a man who saw the world through the eyes of a child and turned those fleeting flights of the imagination into some of the most remarkable tales ever written.

Before I leave this subject, I’d just like to congratulate Francois for his truly inspired  eclectic choice of music including the works of composers such as  Britten, Shostakovich and Rimsky-Korsakov as well as popular numbers such as Alexander’s Ragtime Band, The Three Cornered Hat and the Tango and The Polka from the Bolt Suit.

Watch out for the Queensland Ballet’s next mainhouse production, Don Quixote, which opens at the Playhouse Theatre in May and  then I’ll tell you of the unique connection between the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and this famous ballet.  

For those looking for a more conventional review (that is a compliment) try my friend Eric Scott's Absoloute Theatre http://www.absolutetheatre.com.au/http://For more Queensland Ballet info try    http://www.queenslandballet.com.au/