Category Archives: Christmas Shows

“Jabberwocky!”, Alice in Wonderland and the National Year of Reading

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Did you know that 2026 is National Year of Reading in the UK?

Next weekend I have been invited to perform “Jabberwocky!” for Alice’s Day (July 4th) by The Story Museum in Oxford. You can see more details on my WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME page.

For those who don’t know, (I only heard about it this year) Alice’s Day is celebrated every year as the day when Charles Dodgeson (AKA Lewis Carroll) first told the story of Alice’s Adventures to Alice Liddell and her sisters while rowing down the river on a “… Golden Afternoon”. This is the poem he wrote which you find in the beginning of many copies of the book where he describes the occasion of first inventing the story to entertain the girls:

All In the Golden Afternoon

ALL in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict ‘to begin it’ –
In gentler tone Secunda hopes
‘There will be nonsense in it!’ –
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not more than once a minute.

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast –
And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time -” “It is next time!”
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out –
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers
Pluck’d in a far-off land.

So, I’m looking forward to visiting Oxford, the place of origin of Alice in Wonderland and “Jabberwocky” (originally a poem that is part of the sequel book that Carroll wrote: Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There). I am not sure how many times in my life I have visited Oxford, but not very many, so it is very exciting. I have admired the area from afar many times as part of the settings for the “Morse” TV series, (a long time favourite show of my Mum’s).

We have also now refurbished and rehearsed our long time favourite 1 hour long indoor show of Alice in Wonderland so this show is now ready to go to anywhere that would like to book it. We have performed this show in schools, libraries and studio size spaces in theatres previously. You can CLICK HERE to visit the show page to find out more about the show and see if it would be suitable for your space or event.

Our two performances of “Alice in Wonderland” at Tullie House Museum in Carlisle will now be taking place just before Christmas (22nd December). I will post a link to tickets as soon as they are live, so keep your eyes peeled for that. If you have never been to the museum before it is definitely worth a visit (there are lots of interactive elements which kept my kids entertained for hours and they particularly loved the Ancient Romans section).

We first put the Alice in Wonderland show together in 2008, though I had ideas and made some of the separate elements for the show even earlier than that while I was still at University at Bretton Hall. I was never entirely happy with the execution of the roof of the White Rabbit’s house and I’m pleased to say that it is now improved both practically and aesthetically and creates a very pleasing overall effect (which you will see if you come and see the show).

A Marionette Masterclass at The Harlequin Puppet Theatre

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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This door was affected by fire damage from an arson attack and had been replaced when I last visited but hadn’t been repainted yet. This decoration was recreated by Tim Sykes based on photographs of the original door.

The British Puppet Guild put on this special day long event as part of their Centenary Year celebrations.

I had visited the theatre previously when Chris Somerville was still alive. He gifted ownership of the theatre to Mike Dixon in his will. You can see my previous post about the theatre by clicking on the link below:

A visit to the Harlequin Puppet Theatre

The format of the day was really good including hands on practicing with the vintage marionettes at the theatre under the watchful eye of expert marionettist Ronnie le Drew as well as demonstrations of the long string marionettes and demonstrations of the cabaret marionettes by Ian Denny and Glenn Holden.

We also had some interesting talks from Mike about the history of the building including its creation by Eric Bramall and Chris’s subsequent employment by him and the latter days when Chris was running everything as a one man show.

News for the future of the theatre, if you were not already aware, is that Mike (together with other skilled puppeteers) is putting on performances for the public again now. The first one of which is “A Christmas Carol” this December and I understand is already sold out!

Mike, and his partner Jo Slater, are currently in the middle of upgrading the lighting and sound equipment in the building. When Mike took it on, all of the original electrics and equipment were still in place and in working order, but not up to modern standards in terms of quality, safety and energy efficiency.

As well as directing and giving pointers on our technique, Ronnie treated us all to a wealth of reminiscences about his career and early days at The Little Angel Theatre and the people he worked with there. The puppets at the Harlequin and those made by John Wright of The Little Angel both use an upright style of control which (according to my research) is often referred to as a “British” or “English” upright control and features a separate leg bar.

Below are some of the photos Mike kindly shared from the day as well:

We were practicing with a set of puppets that had been made to perform as a set of Music Hall acts and after one rehearsal put on a little show taking into account the feedback we were given. My puppet was performing the song “Henry the Eighth I am” which was great because I know that song quite well. There was a pre-recorded backing track that we had to move the puppets in sync with and the patter of the M.C. character and the links between the tracks were hilarious (in my opinion anyway). I was reminded very strongly of Henry Gordon Jago from the Tom Baker Dr. Who story “The Talons of Weng Chiang”. Big congratulations to Tom on his recent MBE.

Below is a video which takes a tour of the Harlequin Puppet Theatre by The UK Theatre Tour which gives a lot of the history and also shows the Music Hall Puppets that we used:

The Harlequin Puppet Theatre Website is also an excellent resource containing lots of pointers on making, performance and materials for making and stringing puppets Harlequin Puppet Theatre style! CLICK HERE for the site.