A stubby barge manoeuvres through a lock and moors alongside a clutch of canalside bottle kilns (smoking projections from Daniella Beattie). On board, a curious Alice bombards her hardworking parents with impossible questions. Only one is answered: “What’s for tea?” “An onion in hot water and a pinch of powdered pepper,” replies her “mam”. If the girl wants more, she’d better go and see what she can find in town.
The inspiration for director Theresa Heskins’s adaptation is Lewis Carroll’s photograph of 10-year-old Alice Liddell (his model for the eponymous character), posed as a beggar girl, dressed in rags. Heskins’s Alice, too poor to afford an education, is indignant that books hold “a world of wonders I can’t know”. As she struggles to spell out the words “Eat me”, “Drink me”, it is clear that this Alice (sassy Eleanor Fransch) is determined to reach for the possibilities that reading opens up.
