Chadwick Room, Selwyn College
Dir: James Banton
2 stars

Alice: A Fresher’s Tale belongs to the same species of theatre as those dodgy school pantomimes staged by the sixth form every Christmas. In Alice, Selwyn’s ‘Mighty Players’ have applied the genre to a musical about their college and the results are decidedly mixed.

The musical bases itself very loosely on Alice in Wonderland to tell the story of a Selwyn fresher’s traumatic initiation into Cambridge college life. The Cheshire Cat becomes a philosophising Selwyn fellow, retaining the irritating word-games from the Lewis Carroll novel, whilst the Mad Hatter’s tea party finds its Cambridge equivalent in Alice’s first formal. There is no serious attempt at characterisation; instead the musical consists of a series of songs and sketches loosely strung together by Alice, played by Rosie Cook, a sort of everywoman who spends most of the play wandering round looking bemused and vaguely uncomfortable at the other characters’ antics.

The script is the product of five different writers and has resulted in a rather confused stew of Disney pastiche and student satire, with the occasional nod to Carroll. The satire is cack-handed and depends on a crudely drawn comic strip of Cantab grotesques such as the lecherous Johnian and the socially malformed mathmo. An early scene featuring Alice’s college mum and dad dabbles half-heartedly with class politics – she’s a public school daddy’s girl studying classics, he’s a state-educated northerner reading law – but the theme is dropped as soon as the song begins. Alice’s comedy slumps to its lowest point when a girl swaddled in arctic-exploring gear struggles on stage. The next line is drearily predictable: “I’m from Girton!” Whilst there is nothing wrong with writing stereotypes per se, the play comes a bit unstuck when its ‘moral’ about embracing individuality is unveiled in the finale.

There are occasional highlights. The surreal scene preceding the formal featuring a trio of delinquent dons, one of whom has a Harry Potter fetish, is genuinely funny and, severed from the rest of the play, would make an excellent Smoker sketch. It’s a shame that whoever was responsible for this wasn’t given command of the whole script. Special mention must also go to Greg Dickens playing Dr Chives, a scene-stealing inebriated academic.

It is never entirely clear whether the songs are supposed to be parodies or imitations of West End musical numbers. They’re competent if forgettable ditties, but they don’t contribute any humour or irony to the production. Unless you’re a member of Selwyn, or nostalgic for those sixth form pantos, Alice is probably best avoided.

Will Hensher