THE MAD HATTER’S TEA PARTY***

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6nvPOWTu5U&t=1s

Available until: 14^th August 2020

When I first noticed this on youtube, I assumed it was a ballet for children. The title suggested a performance for children. It was clearly based on or at least inspired by a children’s book. It also seemed to be a Royal Ballet production so I thought it was a ballet for children and I thought I’d get my six year old sister to watch it.

Luckily, I found out a but more about it. I wouldn’t say this is really for children. There is a lot for children to enjoy – some of the scenes have a childlike tone, there is a lot of dancing which children will enjoy and a lot of children will know the story – not that the piece really follows the story.

I think Lottie would probably have loved it but I think she would have missed the idea behind the piece. In this version of the story, Alice, The Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Dormouse, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum are all patients in a psychiatric hospital where they’re looked after by Ernest. At first, they are frightened and shy, reluctant to share their stories, but gradually, they open up.

But Ernest discovers they aren’t the only person in the story who needs help. He does too. This doesn’t come as a particular surprise to me – I’ve seen and heard enough of NHS mental health care to realise it’s actually a bit much to expect your therapist to be sane. It’s also quite a common theme in literature for characters who are supposed to be providing mental health care to find they need some level of help too. But I’m not criticising any lack of originality - I’m not sure I’d find the idea of a sane mental health worker entirely believable and I think I might have been slightly disappointed if The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party had taken this unprecedented route.

My other assumption, that it was a ballet, was also incorrect. Although the piece, staged at The Roundhouse, has some connection with the Royal Ballet, there was very little that actually looked like ballet. I would describe most of the dancing as hip-hop. It bothered me at first that although the characters had their own distinct stories and characters, they all seemed to dance in the same way and did not seem to have their own particular style, but I think that problem is probably more due to my limited experience of this style of dance. I used to think classical music all sounded the same – and I didn’t like it much! But after becoming part of a family where music was very important, hearing classical music all the time and eventually even learning to play and sing it myself, I realised it covered a huge range of styles and sounds and character. And I like it a lot! So I think it’s possible the dancing in The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is a lot more varied than I realised and that it is possible to pick out clear differences in style – if you know enough about it.

The music was mostly quite similar, though this was not due to any lack of versatility on the part of composers and lyricists (and performers) DJ Walde and Josh Cohen. There were some more lyrical, even balletic parts of the music – this just didn’t happen very often. The music was performed and sung by a band above the stage and it worked really well. I doubt even this talented team of performers could sing whilst performing multiple backflips.

The production very sensibly questions the concept of being normal and I feel it does come to the correct conclusion in the end, but I’m not sure it was demonstrated in the most effective way. The production ends with everyone dancing in unison, having a great time at a party – and isn’t this exactly what ‘normal’ people are expected to do? To do exactly the same as everyone else, at a function which is deemed socially acceptable, and to have a great time because this is a party and who doesn’t love a party? There are so many people, particularly teenagers but not exclusively, who are forced into the mindset that they must do what everyone else does and they must enjoy it and if they don’t, they’re not normal. The characters also changed their distinctive and individual clothing – they were still recognisable but had lost some of their individuality here too and the general idea seems to suggest the encouragement of normality and stifling of individuality rather than anything else.

But leaving aside my own personal reservations – which are very personal and probably in complete disagreement with most people’s views – there was a lot to enjoy. The dancing was of a very high standard, with the cast throwing themselves effortlessly about the stage and never seeming to run out of energy. Just when it seemed they really must be exhausted, they turned it up another notch. It was impressive to watch and very enjoyable.

Most of the characters were instantly recognisable. Alice, the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. The animals weren’t as recognisable as they did appear to be human, but as the other characters were unmistakeable, it was easy to learn who the others were. Tommy Franzen was very likeable as Ernest – slightly geeky and giving the impression of clumsiness, even when he was showing what an incredible dancer he was. He almost had to carry the earlier scenes when the other characters were refusing to respond to him and those were actually some of my favourite moments. Teneisha Bonner provided some real glamour as the Queen of Hearts, a much more sympathetic figure than in the original novel - her performance was filled with understated, almost casual brilliance. Kayla Lomas-Kirton was a girlish Alice, though she didn’t seem to be the outsider she was in the book (she came from Wonderland too), and Isaac Baptiste, aka Turbo, owned the stage as the Mad Hatter. There was a lot to enjoy from all the dancers – and I really feel that most of the aspects of the production I feel unsure of are far more because of me than because of the production itself. It wasn’t short of entertainment or genuine skill.