Tag Archives: nonsense poetry

“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).

Oh I do like to be beside the Sea-side…..at Morecambe Variety Festival!!

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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Inside Morecambe Winter Gardens
Fabulous Fire-eating Sideshow
Attracting an audience
“O Frabjous day! Callooh, callay! He chortled in his glee!”
In the spotlight!
Our hero awaits the Jabberwock!
Neil “Nez” Kendall officiates at the fancy dress competition
Neil’s hat has a lovely monkey with a pair of cymbals on it
2 lovely ladies operate the “audio appreciometer”

Greetings Blog readers!  Here’s a quick post about the Morecambe Variety Festival from the weekend before last.

This was an event organised by the lovely Neil Kendall and was at the Winter Gardens in Morecambe.  They had done this event before in 2012 but this is the first time we at Rough Magic Theatre have been involved.

Those of you who are local will know that for many years the Winter Gardens was left empty and was in a very poor state of repair.  However volunteers and the Friends of the Winter Gardens have been painstakingly working away to conserve and renovate the space.

Now it is possible to see what an amazing space it is, was and could be in the future given more money and more love.  Below is a video showing some of what the volunteers have been up to:

The festival attracted a lot of local people who hadn’t seen inside the building before and although there is still a lot to do they are very proud to have toilets and a cafe now which help to make the building a more usable and practical space.

Also the fellow performers I was sharing a dressing room with explained that I was lucky as when they had been involved with the festival in 2012 there had been no heating in the dressing rooms.  I am told that there are plans to install heating in the rest of the building which will be a massive leap forward as it will not only mean that the space can be used in the winter time but should also help minimise further deterioration of the plaster, paintwork etc. due to damp.

All that aside, you can see from the photo’s that even in its present state of slightly delapidated grandeur it was a wonderful setting for a quirky vintage style variety festival like this.

During the day, there were a lot of different performances going on, both outside the entrance of the building and on the main stage and around the edges of the downstairs auditorium and I with my Shadow Puppet Suitcase shows performed in the main auditorium area as well as the entrance hall and outside the building too as was appropriate.  You can see Neil’s photo of my “Jabberwocky!” show by clicking HERE.

There was also a showing Georges Melies’s “A Trip to the Moon” film with a specially composed musical score in one of the downstairs bar areas and also other things in spaces upstairs too.  I have only recently discovered Georges Melies but since I have, he seems to be popping up everywhere.  Below is a video of the film which has been restored and uses the hand-coloured version of the film:

 After I had finished my shows on Sunday we saw the “Empty Theatre Tour” which had characters from the different eras of the theatre’s history conducting a tour of the building in character and contrived to convey an idea of being haunted by the history of the building, (in a nice way).

I had half a day performing on both the Saturday and the Sunday and since we were planning to attend the evening “Around the World in 80 Days” Cabaret Fancy Dress Ball event on the Friday night we booked into a Morecambe Guest House for convenience sake.

The evening entertainment was a combination of quirky variety and circus acts and burlesque performances, with the majority of the performers doing 2 separate performances.  These were linked together by a “flashman” M.C. and his put upon lackey touring the globe looking for the fabulous pink diamond of Limpopo!

In addition there was a fancy dress competition which was won by a lady who had made an ingenious outfit out of the pages of the “Morecambe Visitor”.

Speaking of marvellous local events.  We’ll be appearing at Bentham CARnival again this year at the end of the month, (to find out more about the event click HERE).  It will be a part of the Yorkshire Festival this year and is celebrating the opening of the “Way of the Roses” Passing Place Artwork in particular.  To find out more about this there is another page for CARnival Bentham by Bike that you can visit by clicking HERE.

The artwork is a giant pair of Queen Victoria’s bloomers made out of wire mesh to commemorate the fact that the silk for Queen Victoria’s bloomers was woven at the Bentham Silk Mill.  So bloomers are one of the themes this year as well as fish and fat sheep on bicycles.

I’ll be doing my Edward Lear’s Nonsense show which feature a pair of bloomers/”drawers” made of rabbit skins amongst other things and Tim will be the Mad Hatter who on this occasion will be doing a spot of fishing out of his teapots and kettles!