Double Act is affiliated to NODA, the UK’s National Operatic and Dramatic Association. As such, an aera representative will normally attend (unannounced!) one of our performances and prepare an assessment of our production. He/she will provide both positive and negative critisism to assist us with our drama activities.
For Alice in Cuckoo Land we were honoured to receive a very glowing report which is reproduced below, the result of a lot of hard work by all members.
First of all, take a look at all the energy………
……and the report, prepared by our area representative, Mr Martin Stephen.
Alice in Cuckoo Land
Double Act
26 – 28 November 2025
The tone for the evening – one of enormous fun, engagement and warmth, both in how the cast projected out to the audience and in how the audience received it and projected back – was set at the outset, in the pre-curtain introduction. A call from a member of the Front of House team saying ‘You won’t turn off your mobile phones, will you?’ was responded to by the audience with a loud ‘oh yes we will’. The show had the wonderful community feel to it for which Double Act is renowned, as exemplified by the Alice in Cuckoo Land Community Song in which Old Mother Wobbly, the Dame character, led the audience in singing at one point (words provided in the programmes), with great gusto. The audience hardly needed prompting; when the pianist played Jingle Bells during a scene change they sang along happily of their own accord.
Having live piano music was a great plus, contributing a great deal to the warm and friendly atmosphere in the community hall and the pianist (Eve Baker) played superbly. The audience engagement was also enhanced by the energetic performance of the Mouse (Rafe Jubber) who opened the show by running around the auditorium blowing a ‘squeak’ whistle, and who later on, in contrasting style, sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat with great sweetness, curling up to sleep at the end of it which prompted a lovely ‘ahh’ from the audience. Great energy was also shown by the Mouse in dancing enthusiastically to Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody. This song was led by Santa Claus (Pete Smith) who displayed just the right level of bonhomie and jollity and who did a very good job of encouraging the audience to sing along. The role was a nice comic turn, including a sort of Tourette’s shouting out of ‘baubles’.
This was very much an ensemble show with everyone working as a team. Various characters from Alice in Wonderland provided solid support, including six Crew Cards, The Knave of Hearts (Julie Blinkhorn), Floppy Rabbit (Karen Stevens) who gave a good rendition of ‘You’ve got a friend in me’ along with Alice, and a great performance from Chester the Cat (Eleanor Morris) who skilfully combined hutzpah with cuteness.
Tweedle Dumb (Dee Stephens) and Tweedle Dumber (Emma Lacey) provided very funny moments including a ‘movie intro’ routine and one commenting on people listening to their conversation, which covered a scene change. Their song Jam Tart Queen about the Queen of Hearts, a reworking of Abba’s Dancing Queen, was a particularly enjoyable number.
The Hatter (Nick Jubber) was played with delightful eccentricity, delivering jollity and bags of energy, including an impressive leaping onto and off a neatly designed rock in the forest.
The ‘goody’ King of Hearts character (David Kemp) was excellent with clear, strong projection and well-judged pacing, a great foil to the evil Queen of Hearts. He projected a warm, avuncular nature and was very effective at engaging with the audience and winning their sympathy.
Alice Wobbly (Mary Newcombe) not only exuded warmth and charm but also had ‘oomph’, putting in a great deal of physical movement and gestures to enhance the character.
The Queen of Hearts (Lindsay Dixon) was strong, commanding the stage with crystal-clear diction, powerful projection and a wonderfully ‘evil’ delivery which generated plenty of ‘boos’ from the audience. There was an interesting twist to the character and direction in that she didn’t, for the most part, respond in standard ‘oh yes I am’ panto fashion to the audience’s ‘oh no you’re not’ when she set out what evil things she was going to do or declaimed ‘I’m going to win’. This gave a subtle impression of the character being so strong and evil that she didn’t have to deign to interact in that way; as Queen of Hearts she was above it. This made the revelation of the childhood trauma that prompted her wickedness (not being given a jam tart-maker) all the more poignant. The actor’s proficiency and experience was also demonstrated at one point in a neat line recovery which generated a big round of applause from the audience.
A stellar performance was given by Old Mother Wobbly (David Wellstead) as a Dame par excellence, lighting up the stage with every appearance and pumping in the energy of a power station. In addition to perfect comic timing and delivery, great stage presence and powerful characterisation in ‘her’ own right, the interactions with the other characters were thoughtful and generous, so that Old Mother Wobbly didn’t end up dominating over anyone else. ‘She’ also demonstrated clever and amusing improvisation on the odd occasion when something on stage went wrong.
Team working was at the core of the production, with a large cast moving around and interacting neatly together. The number of credits in the programme showed how many of the cast and community were involved in the many production roles including backstage and technical. Congratulations to the Director (Paulette Stephens) who brought out the best of everyone in their designated roles and showed great creativity, and to the Stage Manager (Jean Dixon) for smooth management of all the exits and entrances and scene changes, not to mention all the costume changes of Old Mother Wobbly.
The sections in front of the curtain during scene changes worked well and the regular appearance from the wings of a cardboard cuckoo on a pole whenever ‘Cuckoo Land’ was mentioned, along with a ‘cuckoo’ sound, was a lovely running gag. As well as a host of pantomime jokes including the odd topical local reference there were some excellent props (congratulations to Jean and Dougal Dixon and Pete Smith) including a giant jam tart with a sparkler in it and the Queen of Hearts’ axe. The table in the forest was well-laid with stage food sitting on a themed painted tablecloth.
Set design, painting and construction were a strong feature of the show, with superb painted backdrops for the Alice’s garden and the forest, and cleverly painted flats for the dungeon and the castle interior, the latter including impressive portraits of the King and Queen of Hearts . The large toadstools and mushrooms set on stage for the forest scene were very striking.
The Sound and Lights team contributed significantly to the atmosphere, with sparkly lights on the ceiling at the start and a psychedelic spiralling light effect later on. The sound effect of dripping water in the dungeon was also very effective, reverberating stereophonically around the auditorium. The high standard was seen to in the costume department, with particularly impressive costumes worn by Alice, Floppy the Rabbit, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, and the Queen, King and Knave of Hearts. Old Mother Wobbly, as befits a panto Dame, was in a class of ‘her’ own costume-wise, sporting one over-the-top outfit after another, a different one for each appearance, including a very good prisoner uniform for the dungeon scene.
The feel-good factor that ran throughout this production culminated in some nice and neat resolutions at the end, with Alice proposing that the Queen of Hearts should remain as Queen and the Mouse explaining that Chester the Cat, who had been chasing him through the course of the show, was just trying to retrieve the packed lunch which the Mouse had got hold of.
Well done to everyone on a wonderful production.
Martin Stephen
NODA South West Representative, District 11