In this surreal television film, a young woman steps through a mirror into a nonsensical chessboard world populated by bizarre characters.
Curious about the world she can see reflected in a looking-glass, Alice (Kate Beckinsale) is startled when she is able to climb through it into an alternate reality. There, she encounters the imperious Red Queen (Siân Phillips) and the flustered White Queen (Penelope Wilton), who explain that the landscape is a giant chessboard. To return home, Alice must join the game as a white pawn and travel to the eighth square to be crowned a queen. Her journey across this strange land brings her into contact with a series of peculiar figures, including the argumentative twins Tweedledum (Gary Olsen) and Tweedledee (Marc Warren), the pedantic Humpty Dumpty (Desmond Barrit), and the gentle, melancholic White Knight (Ian Holm).
A high-profile Christmas broadcast for Channel 4, this adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s sequel distinguished itself with a formidable cast and a distinctly unsettling tone. The production drew together established talent like Ian Holm and Siân Phillips with performers such as Kate Beckinsale and Steve Coogan, who were on the cusp of major stardom. Nick Vivian’s teleplay leans into the psychological strangeness of the source material, presenting a world governed by a rigid, dreamlike logic that is more unnerving than whimsical. John Henderson’s direction creates a visually inventive but claustrophobic environment, rejecting picturesque fantasy for a more theatrical and disorienting aesthetic that remains faithful to the intellectual absurdities of Carroll’s original text.
Broadcast: Channel 4, 26 December 1998
Adapted from the novel by Lewis Carroll by: Nick Vivian
Director: John Henderson
Executive Producer: Guy Collins
Producers: Trevor Eve, Simon Johnson
Main Cast: Kate Beckinsale (Alice), Siân Phillips (Red Queen), Penelope Wilton (White Queen), Ian Holm (White Knight), Geoffrey Palmer (White King), Michael Medwin (Red King), Steve Coogan (Gnat), Gary Olsen (Tweedledum), Marc Warren (Tweedledee), Desmond Barrit (Humpty Dumpty), Ian Richardson (Wasp)
