Alice in Wonderland

Set Design

Pamela Raith Photography

Derby Theatre

Directed by Sarah Brigham

Lighting by Alexandra Stafford - Marshall

Costume Design by Tim Heywood

REVIEWS

Behind the Arras

"The set (courtesy of Emily Bestow) is magnificent"

Theatre and Tonic

"The scenery is possibly one of Derby Theatre’s strongest setups for a long time. Emily Bestow, Set Designer, has utilised the whole stage and even parts of the theatre itself."

Limping Chicken

"the stage looked absolutely stunning, a triumph by set designer Emily Bestow. A huge garden slide was placed at the side and the audience could watch as Alice (and her cat Dinah) arrived, and slid all the way down into Wonderland, a delightfully playful tool which reminded us of how young and innocent Alice really is."

Beyond the Curtain

" When you enter the auditorium itself, the bright colours and card deck theme are striking, transporting you to Lewis Carroll’s world in an instant with familiar sights including the famous red roses as well as fun new additions including a working playground slide!"

Derby World

"Alice In Wonderland is a stylish, thought-provoking production with sumptuous set pieces"

ABOUT THE DESIGN

The Queen wants to stamp out BSL as she sees it as dissent amongst her subjects. The scenes with the Queen were in her garden, so the inspiration was for her garden to be 'noisy', with giant microphone trees, a vintage radio inspired gazebo, and gramophone roses which the records could be flipped for them to be 'painted'. Originally the band were on a raised platform shaped like a box of cards, but as rehearsals developed this was changed to be upright to box in the keyboard.

The 'real world' was designed to be out in the auditorium, with a slide for Alice to fall down the rabbit hole. The auditorium platforms as the real world had realistic plantss and foliage.
A BSL and Creative Caption integrated performance, so the caption surfaces were designed to be a pack of cards spilling out framing the set. This also allowed for versatility in changing the surfaces for different locations- heart cards in the queens palace, or mad hatter tea party cards etc.