Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Alice is at it again — and twice on Saturdays. Christopher Wheeldon’s 2011 production began a 30-performance run at Covent Garden last weekend. A clutch of terrific debuts breathed fresh life into the characters and Bob Crowley’s designs remain witty and inventive, but the story never really justifies its (almost) three-hour running time. The scissor fingers start to itch long before the end of the 45-minute first act — do we really need the Caucus Race? — but the production is richly fruited with opportunities for stars, soloists, character players and students.Carroll’s Alice is a precocious seven-year-old but Wheeldon and his dramaturg, Nicholas Wright, have reimagined her as a young teenager, allowing them to confect a boy-meets-girl romance with the gardener’s son Jack/Knave of Hearts. Like Clara in many Nutcracker productions, the heroine requires the looks and manners of a girl and the technique of a ballerina. Viola Pantuso (matinee) and Francesca Hayward (evening) perfectly embody these contradictions: sulky stomps one minute; double pirouettes the next. Marcelino Sambé and William Bracewell combine unforced classicism with tender partnering.Each stage picture is more striking than the last. The Cheshire Cat is an ingenious seven-man puppet. The enchanted forest panorama is like a Gallé glass vase come to life. Flower fairies surge through the stalls beneath a petal drop wearing Ascot-worthy millinery. The Sweeney Todd-y horror of the Duchess’s peppery kitchen is a vegan’s nightmare, with whole pigs fed into a sausage machine to the snarling brass of Joby Talbot’s commissioned score.Lauren Cuthbertson seldom has the chance to flex her comedy muscles but has the time of her life as the murderous Queen of Hearts in a glorious pastiche of Sleeping Beauty’s Rose Adagio, nerveless balance punctuated by deadpan pratfalls. Steven McRae, returning after a nasty knee injury, is a tap-happy Mad Hatter. Liam Boswell, Leo Dixon and anti-gravity specialist Daichi Ikarashi make the most of the Duchess’s froggy footmen. Norwegian first soloist Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød is a sinuous Caterpillar, conceived by Wheeldon as an Arabian Nights exotic complete with jewelled turban and a bevy of beauties. The Royal Ballet recently got its harem pants in a twist about the Arabian Dance in Peter Wright’s Nutcracker and its sumptuous faux-Indian La Bayadère remains in the sin bin but Wheeldon somehow gets a free pass here.Thomas Whitehead (matinee) and Gary Avis (evening) are pure honeyroast camp as the Duchess, first cousin to one of ballet’s other great dames: Widow Simone in La Fille Mal Gardée, now touring with Birmingham Royal Ballet. Frederick Ashton’s delicious romantic comedy was always a favourite with BRB’s director, Carlos Acosta, who has masterclassed the current casts. Cuban-trained debutant Enrique Bejarano Vidal navigates the tricky mix of high classicism and low comedy with great charm. Beatrice Parma is a witty and musical Lise, her pas de bourrée delicately nibbling the floor. Rory Mackay nails every laugh and wins every heart as the Widow whose plans for an advantageous marriage are outwitted by true love.★★★★☆‘Alice’ to July 6 2025, rbo.org.uk
