Wonderland, Mayflower Theatre

CURIOUSER and curiouser.

You do have to expect a musical reworking of Lewis Carroll’s tales of Alice to be fairly strange, but Wonderland proves to be often bewildering and occasionally dazzling. It does act as a fantastic evening of madcap escapism for theatre-goers though.

Alice is a downtrodden single mum living on an estate in modern day Britain and having a particularly bad day. It’s her 40th birthday , she receives news of her ex-husband’s remarriage, her car is stolen and she’s sacked from for being late.

So, when a white rabbit appears to her and her daughter Ellie, they decide to disappear down the rabbit hole - or rather plummet down towards Wonderland in the out of order lift of their high rise block of flats - with their neighbour Jack.

Here they meet all the regular characters from the books. The Chesire Cat (Dominic Owen) is underused, but the Mad Hatter (Natalie McQueen) is larger than life. They’re all great fun t and I particularly loved the oh so smooth caterpillar (Kayi Ushe) and of course the antics of Tweedle Dum (Benjamin McMillan) and Tweedle Dee (Benjamin Yates.)

Of the leads, Wendi Peters steals the show as the Queen of Hearts and was not on stage enough and Dave Willetts makes an endearing Welsh White Rabbit. Rachael Wooding impresses as Alice and has great chemistry with nerd turned hero Jack (Stephen Webb). But it is Ellie (Naomi Morris) who has the best comic turn as a stroppy teenager.

A bizarre take on a bonkers book.

Wonderland runs until Saturday. Tickets: 023 8071 1811 or mayflower.org.uk