Mind the Gap: Alice takes the Underground into Wonderland

Poltergeist production has weaved rap music with the sights and sounds of Brixton into a hundred-mile-an-hour Christmas adventure.

Alice in Wonderland will return to Brixton House in Coldharbour Lane, for an extended festive run from November 21, 2024 until January 4 2025.

In this latest production, Brixton school girl Alice, played by Tatenda Matsvai, is a turbulence of emotions.

After an explosive argument with Mum, played by Cheyenne Dasri, at Brixton Underground Station, the 11-year-old leaps onto the tube seconds before the doors hiss shut.

Set along the Victoria line, the play forms a narrative of nonsense as writers throw puns around the tube map.

Alice has fallen down the gap, but remains on a speeding train surrounded by weird and wonderful passengers including football fans Dee and Dum. 

This wonderland has its own Queen who won’t relinquish the controls of the railway as Alice desperately tries to turn her train around.

Throughout the performance rap lyrics slip within the script, erupting in a climactic battle between Alice and her mum, matched by an unsettling lighting design and soundscape.

Last seen over the Christmas 2022 season, Poltergeist and Brixton House’s razor sharp reinterpretation of Alice in Wonderland is rooted in the Brixton community, bringing this much-loved classic bang up to date in contemporary South London.

Pictured top: Alice in Wonderland (Picture: Brixton House)