Review: Alice ****

Not that there aren't weaknesses, but Wade's script, combined with a playful piece of directing from Lyndsey Turner, takes audiences on a journey into not so much a wonderland as the wonder of theatreland.

Using Lewis Carroll's story as source material, Sheffield lass Wade treats the story with anything but reverence, borrowing, changing, snipping and adding to create a show that is entirely her own.

From the opening of the story it is clear that this is a different sort of Alice.

Like Tim Burton's recent adaptation, this is more re-imagining than re-telling of the original story, with Wade turning Alice into a 12-year-old stuck in the middle of a wake for her older brother, killed in a car accident.

In many ways this is anything but an ideal story to tell on stage. From the tumbling into the rabbit hole to Alice's growing and shrinking antics, the story is almost entirely unsuited to telling on stage.

Director Turner deals with the challenges head on, asking the audience to accept that she and the designers will do their best to stretch and shrink the hero of the story but will only succeed with the collective imagination of the gathered audience.

It is all good fun and the audience seems happy to collude in the tricking of their imagination.

The play is helped along by a strong performance from Ruby Bentall, as Alice, who has both the innocence and knowing of a contemporary 12 year old.

The production is peppered with some genuinely funny performances, in particular a whole spectrum from scene-stealing John Marquez who shines particularly brightly as Humpty Dumpty.

The major criticism is one I level at every version of Alice in Wonderland I experience, in that it's final third act always, always drags.

Wade doesn't shy away from the seriously dark undertones of the book, although here they are about loss and grief rather than the slightly more surreal darkness Carroll explored. If only she could find a way to tighten up that last 15 minutes.

Sheffield Crucible

To July 24.