No one would have believed in the last days of the 2015 that Cardiff was hosting a “staged radio play” written and acted by intelligences far greater than mine….
Last year our favourite Christmas surprise was No Fit State Circus’s “Blood in the Snow”, a tiny theatrical event in their Four Elms Road venue that we just loved. Somewhere between Cirque Du Soleil and John Masefield’s Box of Delights, it was an unexpected, magical, snow-covered treat. So how to top that? Your mission, dad, should you choose to accept is to find something similar that we can all enjoy as a family…
Ever heard of The Other Room? No me neither until just this month when, searching for said Christmassy event for the family I came across an ad for “Alix in Wundergarten”.
It turns out that Porter’s bar has diversified from cabaret and stand-up comedy on the corner stage to having a full-blown if mini-sized theatre in “The Other Room” (hence the name).
So it was a case of “step behind the velvet curtain” and prepare for…
I’m not sure what could have prepared us for what followed, to be honest. Pass through the squeaky gate, step into the gravel-filled dog toilet, unsuccessfully dodge the over-friendly luvvy actor greeter and take your uncomfortably close to the action seats. Then strap yourself in, grip those seats and clench those butts because its going to be a bumpy ride.
The conceit of the evening is that you’re the lucky winners of studio audience seats to view the recording of a radio-version of Alice in Wonderland. The play within a play’s fictional director Fabian is portrayed by the actual author of the piece Francois Pandolfo – confused yet? We haven’t even started. The cast of Alice includes a fresh from drama-school (RADA dontcha-know) Toby (Arthur Hughes), Swansea-girl made good Elin-Rose (Louisa Marie Lorey), the very tactile Gail, sorry Gael, pronounced Guy-el – it’s Spanish (Dean Rehman) and the fading or never-quite was all-that West-End star Nick (Richard Elfyn) as well as the off stage presence of the technicians and of course us – the audience.
The whole thing is quite brilliantly handled, veering from cosy Brian-Rix-esque farce to the surreal slapstick fantasy works of Dario Fo stopping off en-route for some full-frontal-cortex confusing moments of hard-core candle abuse and serious drama (hang-on – is this real now or part of the play…) along the way. At some early point in proceedings the whole thing eschews logic and plotline and follows the White Rabbit down the burrow of surrealism and your brain never quite keeps up.
From Gail’s (sorry Gael’s) scene of silent discomfort, Fabian and Elin’s cake and candle-munching moment, Toby’s foul-mouthed marital confessions and Nick’s constant search for adulation and recognition (made even more surrealy uncomfortable by a real-life West-End star being present in the audience – was that planned?) the highlights were many and varied.
My favourite scene has to be the hot-tub-time-machine-alike strobe light that transports Elin-Rose back to her disco-dancing hinterland but the stand-out scenes came (phnar phnar), thick and fast. It’s not often that you’ll see Santa being hung by a man with his one hand down his tighty-whiteys to the sound of uncomfortable audience laughter.
By the end, somehow the lost threads of plot were picked up and re-plaited into just enough rope of logic to hang a final Alix in Cold War Wundergarten plot onto and we all emerged from the rabbit hole delighted if not a little traumatised.
A comedy of discomfort and embarrassment, I’m not sure how Christmassy it actually was but we loved it – something for all the family, provided your family is open-minded, not easily shocked and ideally a little off kilter.
And by the way – just why is a raven like a writing desk?
Highly recommended
Eat see hear Cardiff 