TWO ALICE ANNIVERSARIES by Adèle Geras

"And what is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversation?"

This has long been one of my favourite quotations from a favourite book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.  I agree with it completely. I can't promise you conversations in this post but I do have a lot of pictures to share.

This year is a double anniversary. It's 150 years since Carroll's book was published and it's 50 years since I appeared (or rather took part...I didn't appear.  I was hidden. More of that later!) in a production of a play directed by Adrian Benjamin to celebrate the centenary of the publication, in 1965. This passage of time makes me feel almost as old as Alice herself. 

 Nigel Rees, who now hosts shows on BBC Radio such as Quote Unquote, was the organising force behind the 50th anniversary tea party in the Dean's Garden at Christ Church College. He played the Narrator (Lewis Carroll)  in the play, and has kept an extensive archive of photographs, some of which I reproduce below.

The pictures above and below show some of the rehearsals in Christ Church Meadow, where the production took place. These must have been rehearsals quite late on in the process because we also used the Dean's Garden and I do remember thinking: Alice, the real Alice Liddell, the Dean's daughter, would have played here, where we're lying about and declaiming. 

The seven Alices in the photo below were part of the rather 60s ish aspect of the show. I can no longer remember (it was half a century ago!) what the purpose of those seven young women was, but it looked wonderful when they were all together on the rungs of a ladder, as I recall. 

The real Alice, the embodiment of Carroll's quiet and determined young heroine, was Tamara Ustinov. She was quite spectacularly good and looked just like the Tenniel illustrations when dressed in her costume. 

There are no photos of me in action from that production.  I am in the programme under a pseudonym: Rosamund Ackworth.  This was because I didn't have acting permission. I had done 'too much acting' according to my tutors and failed my Preliminary exams (the only scholar of the college ever to have done such a thing in living memory) and so the powers that be decided that I couldn't be in Alice....defying those powers and taking part anyway was the one naughty thing I did while at St Hilda's. And the director made sure I wasn't caught. As well as appearing under a pseudonym, I was placed on a kind of platform up a tree with only my skirt and shoes showing. My role was as Alice's sister,  and all I had to do was sing. When a song like "You are old, Father William" was sung on ground level, there I would be, singing the original hymn or Victorian parlour song of which it was a parody. It was a perfect arrangement. Once the production went on to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall after the term had ended, I could be visible and sang my songs from the top of a rock.

That was in 1965. The tea party was early in July. And you can see, from the picture below, that Tamara Ustinov is still looking very Alice-like. Age cannot wither her, etc. To her left is the Dean of Christ Church who very kindly let us use his garden for our revels. The person with their back to the camera is Nigel Rees.

Oxford was full of Alice memorabilia. Here's a window that's typical of many I saw. 

This is the Dean's garden. Just as I remember it, but bigger.  This was where we rehearsed quite often.

The food was most appropriate for the occasion, as you can see.

I haven't put up photos of the cast today.  They looked, spookily, much older and still exactly the same as they were at 20. But here below is Alice's nursery. The Dean allowed us to go up there and photograph it, too. It's the sitting room for him and his young family, but this was where Alice Liddell spent a great deal of time and it was wonderful to be there and see what it was like, imagine what the room must have been like in her day.

I went to the window and looked out. This must have been something that Alice, from what we know of her, did over and over again. I took a picture and this is it. The plants may have been different, but it was strange looking out just in the same way as she did. I have no doubt that this place is haunted in the best possible way: full of echoes of the book. And the  book is one that will live forever, in  spite of some modern misgivings about its author. 

Some of us went to evensong in the Cathedral before leaving. It was a perfect end to a wonderful occasion and many thanks are due to the Dean for letting us celebrate our anniversary in such grand style.  

YESTERDAY Part 3: THEATRICAL HIGHLIGHTS by Adèle Geras

The real highlight of my theatrical life at Oxford was appearing in an anti-capital punishment review called HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD AND DIE in my first year. The show transferred to the Comedy Theatre in London in the spring of 1964 and was a huge success. I will write about it on another occasion, but this centenary production of ALICE IN WONDERLAND in 1965 was also memorable. This is how I wrote about it in YESTERDAY.

The original Alice was one of the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church,

and when the weather permitted, we rehearsed in the Dean’s Garden: a place not generally open to the public. I couldn’t quite get over it. Not having very much to do at rehearsals, I used to lie on the grass and watch the others and say to myself: this is it. This is the real Alice’s real garden. She must have sat here with her sisters. I’m not a believer in ghosts, but I did look for Alice because that small garden was an enchanted place. What I had to do in the play was this: sit up a tree on a specially-designed platform and very time someone sang a song (How doth the little crocodile? You are old, Father William, etc) I had to sing the original Victorian hymn or song that Carroll was sending up. I think I was supposed to be Alice’s sister. All that could be seen of me was the hem of my long skirt peeping through the foliage. This was fortunate because I didn’t have acting permission and appeared in the programme under a pseudonym. The reason for this was: I’d used up my acting ration appearing as (sic) Zenobia Bogus-Bogus in a musical called (sic again) You Can’t Do Much Without A Screwdriver…..

[Addendum: written now rather than in 1992 and not from the book: Here is a photo of me,in that show, on the left, with an actor called Ian Marter, courtesy of the wonderful David Wood who has an unbeatable archive of such memorabilia.]

And here is another of me and Diana Quick beating up a policeman during a production number called EMANCIPATION, which had something loose to do with the Suffrage movement. Diana is on the right of the policeman in the middle as you look at it and I am on the left....doesn't matter! It's a fun photo if a little indistinct.

During the Summer Vacation we took the production (of Alice in Wonderland) to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall and set it among the rocks and crags overlooking the sea. Every night, in that amazingly beautiful place,

I pitted my unamplified voice against the waves of the Channel, which much of the time were obligingly whispery and quiet. Most of the company slept in a large church hall. All the sleeping bags lined up on the floor looked like rows and rows of butterflies in the larval stage of their development. Vince and I had a tent in the churchyard, and tents soon ousted caravans from their number one position at the top of the “Uncomfortable Habitation” chart. It rained unceasingly the first few days we were in Cornwall, and at night time, moisture seeped in under the groundsheet despite our best efforts.