Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

“You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are” – Lewis Carroll

Welcome to the entirely bonkers world of the funniest tea party ever imagined. With colour, movement, humour and astonishing acts, this cabaret is a delight for everyone from 5 to 105.  Alice isn’t in this version of Wonderland.  Rather, we the audience get to experience the tea party as if we were Alice. 

The Mad Hatter (Eloise Green) is the MC, controlling the pace of the party, bringing the audience to participate and even sit at the giant table on stage, and introducing the characters. In the seven-strong cast, everyone has many things to do and even the stage manager is the White Rabbit. The atmosphere is set up well before the show starts, with the characters mingling with the audience. We were treated to a visit from the very smiley Cheshire Cat, for example. The set, as mentioned, has a giant, grassy table about which there are several chairs. Cups and saucers plus tea pots are colourful, red and white toadstools are growing on the table, and suspended in mid-air are many giant hats.

The Mad Hatter showed mad hula hoop skills, with the appreciative audience cheering on a 4 hula hoop split. The Flamingo (Alicia Rose Quinn) is cleverly brought onto stage and immediately shows how she is far more than an incidental character as shown in the original book. The song “Pink is my Obsession” gives a fair idea of her all-singing, all-dancing, all-partying character!

Standouts include Marianna Joslin as the Cheshire Cat, doing what cats do best: climbing far higher than humans thought. Of course, given her amazing aerialist skills, she follows with a breathtaking display on aerial silks, enough to cause gasps of astonishment from the audience.

The Red Queen (Stuart Christie) removes her cape and wig, and dazzles with a marvellous corde lisse display, demonstrating strength, flexibility and showmanship. The March Hare (Daniel Gorski) thrilled the audience with precision juggling – with tea saucers, of course, and hats. The Caterpillar (Casey Douglas) turns into a butterfly to the strains of “I Want to Break Free” and then moved into a hand-balancing routine on toadstools.

While this show may have been during the school holidays, this is not strictly for children. Adults will get a lot of enjoyment from this, and will need to be prepared for a stream of questions about drama school, circus school and the advisability of putting a corde lisse on the verandah.

Rachel McGrath-Kerr

Photographer: Daniel Boud.