This pioneering, live television production adapts Lewis Carroll’s fantasy for the BBC’s inaugural year.
A young girl, Alice (Ursula Hanray), tumbles down a rabbit hole into a bizarre and nonsensical land. There she meets a cast of strange characters including the frantic White Rabbit (Alban Blakelock), the imperious Queen of Hearts (Mary Hallatt), and the participants of a never-ending tea party: the Mad Hatter (Earle Grey), the March Hare (Walter Tobias), and a sleepy Dormouse (Patricia Hayes). She also encounters a formidable Duchess (Molly Hamley Clifford) and a grinning Cheshire Cat (Campbell Logan) as she tries to make sense of her surreal surroundings.
This version of Alice in Wonderland stands as one of the most ambitious dramatic productions of the BBC Television Service’s first year. Broadcast live from Alexandra Palace on four separate occasions in 1937, the 25-minute piece was a significant undertaking for the new medium. The adaptation by Royston Morley, directed by the pioneer George More O’Ferrall, had to create a convincing fantasy world within the severe technical limitations of the era. Its multiple performances, including two during the Christmas week, confirm its status as a prestige event designed to attract audiences to the fledgling technology of television.
Broadcast: BBC, 4 Live Performances, 29 April 1937, 1 May 1937, 21 December 1937, 25 December 1937
Adapted by: Royston Morley
Director: George More O’Ferrall
Music by: Harold Stuteley
Main Cast: Ursula Hanray (Alice), Walter Tobias (The March Hare), Earle Grey (The Mad Hatter), Fred O’Donovan (The King of Hearts), Alban Blakelock (The White Rabbit), Molly Hamley Clifford (Duchess), Campbell Logan (Cook / Cheshire Cat), Patricia Hayes (Dormouse), Mary Hallatt (The Queen of Hearts)
