Don’t miss this extravagant ballet! Explore Alice’s magical world.

Fabulous sets, gorgeous costumes and splendid choreography

Magical fun for the entire family

Lewis Carroll’s surreal world is sensationally brought to life in this splendid large-scale ballet of Alice in Wonderland by English National Ballet.

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice. Find out why as you follow Alice down the rabbit hole to an enchanting land of magic and absurdity. Strange croquet games, a trial for the Knave of Hearts and a mad tea party are all part of the nonsensical fun. Meet a cast of charmingly absurd characters that includes the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the violent Queen of Hearts.

Derek Deane’s spellbinding choreography includes some visually stunning corps de ballet dances for the flowers and the anthropomorphic deck of cards. The Knave of Hearts dances a lovely duet with Alice and the White Rabbit is constantly in motion with sharp footwork. Tchaikovsky’s superb score adapted by Carl Davis, Sue Blane’s colourful and extravagant costumes and the fantastic illusions created by Paul Kieve result in a magical production for the whole family to enjoy.

Post-performance meet-the-artist session will be held on Mar 5. Wayne Eagling, Artistic Director of ENB, will host this session.

Costuming Alice
Alice in Wonderland – A Family Ballet by the English National Ballet

“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”

by Sue Blane

When Macmillan first published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1866 there were plenty of both. Lewis Carroll’s anarchic yet magical world was brought brilliantly to life by the 42 black-and-white drawings which accompanied the text. The illustrations were the work of Sir John Tenniel, a contemporary artist well known for his work in Punch, who worked closely with Carroll to create the vision of Wonderland which has proved so enduring. Macmillan has continued to publish editions of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland ever since. In 1911 eight colour plates were added which had been prepared by the artist Harry Theaker towards the end of Tenniel’s life were added in the book. These fixed the image of Alice as you see her today: blonde hair, blue dress and striped stockings.

The idea of this ballet was originally developed by Derek Deane and Carl Davis in 1996. They wanted to produce a totally new piece, bringing Alice in Wonderland to the stage. Derek approached me directly and I thought it was a wonderful idea. Such stunning subject matter!

When faced with creating something as well-known and celebrated as Alice in Wonderland, there’s quite a lot of ideas to apply. My main focus was to turn Carroll’s famous characters into characters that would work in a classical ballet. First and foremost the costumes had to be danceable and allow the dancers as much freedom as possible to compliment Derek’s choreography. I was also keen to acknowledge Sir John Tenniel’s original drawings in my designs.

To understand what makes a costume danceable is really common sense. Ideally a dancer should be able to move in every direction. One of the most interesting costumes to design was the square tutu for the pack of cards, an idea that Derek and I came up with together. It’s very important for classical dancers to use tutus as they use the shape to balance, so to make a square tutu work in the same way as a conventional one was quite a challenge! The prototype took quite a while to perfect in order to get the balance right. The animals were also a challenge; I wanted them to be believable as animals but they also had to show off the dancer’s movements.

After such a long time in storage there are new challenges for the wardrobe team and dancers when they undertake the costume fittings. The costumes are stored extremely carefully and are taken out of storage to make sure they are in good condition long work is started on them. More detailed work starts when the costumes are fitted. We go through several weeks of fittings before a production opens giving the dancers the opportunity to try on the costumes and see how they feel to move in. There are often small adjustments required after a costume has been danced in for the first time. Luckily English National Ballet has a great costume team on hand to make any changes. Finally, dancers are great technicians who know how to move in a costume in order to make it work to its full effect; something that for most of us would be impossible!

© English National Ballet

Sue Blane is the costume and set designer for Alice in Wonderland.