REVIEW: Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

KidZania is a scaled city replica of real life for children from 4-14 years, designed to empower and inspire, located in West London (W12) and they streamed a version of the pantomime Cinderella during lockdown offering the kids a glimpse of what they are missing. They have now followed up with an even better production of Alice In Wonderland with the same team for this summer holiday again tempting parents and kids in the Southeast to visit the venue.

The production is filmed inside the building using the street scenes as a background for Alice’s home and clever editing, backcloths and stage sets for the Wonderland sequences. It works extremely well giving the show a high-quality look and they inject some digital effects to give it a magical feel that will surely entertain the 4-to-14-year-olds it is aimed out for the forty-minute run time. The music selection will also entertain the watching parents as the MD, Ed Court, packs a lot of well-known songs into the show.

Beccy Lane leads the cast as Alice, looking every inch the part and is very good throughout. Her powerful opening number is Stevie Wonder’s bluesy “Don’t worry about a thing” which sets the tone for the show. The sequences as she slides down the rabbit hole, shrinks from drink, and grows from the cake are all very simply and effectively done. Louis Rayneau as well as directing again, bounds through the story as the White Rabbitt and although the pace temporarily dips in the sequence of the Mouse delivering a lecture, it soon accelerates into a madcap chase around the site meeting the array of bizarre and amusing characters from Lewis Carroll’s famous novel.

REVIEW: Cinderella at KidZania (Online)

KidZania is a scaled city replica of real life for children from 4-14 years, designed to empower and inspire, located in West London (W12) which of course was closed when London went into Tier 4 on 16th December. However, they were bold enough to capture a version of Cinderella earlier this year so can offer the kids a glimpse of what they are missing. The production is filmed inside the building using the street scenes as a background for the Village, the ballroom and forest and a traditional stage cloth to set the Hard Up Hall kitchen. It works extremely well giving the show a realistic feel with depth of scene and acting as a promotion for the venue.

Maybe because it is targeted at the same 4 to 14-year-olds with a low attention span in a multimedia world, the show is kept short to just forty-five minutes and they focus on the music rather than the traditional pantomime business and jokes. We only get a handful of the old gags (including a good Weakest Link parody) which are slipped into the storytelling that speeds along until the custard pies provide a weak finish. There ought to be a warning message to the under fourteens "to not try this at home" when Cinderella gets shut in a fridge as opposed to the usual dungeon or cupboard. The call-outs to the audience of course go unanswered which feels flat and they don't acknowledge the silence but pretend there is a response.