MIF15 officially starts on Thursday – but last night, three days ahead of the Festival’s official launch, saw the first preview performance of wonder.land, a brand new musical inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. We caught up with the key creative team and learned a little more about the show – how it came about, what inspired it and how it’s been created. For tickets to any of the remaining preview performances (Tuesday and Wednesday), or for the main run (Thursday 2 until 12 July), click here.
Damon Albarn (music):
For me, the idea [to set the show in the online world] was very much a reaction to my own daughter’s relationship with social media and all the other things I probably don’t know about that she’s looked at on the internet. Immediately, for all three of us, it had a heart that we really wanted to articulate.
I’ve never set other people’s words to music. There have been a few curveballs thrown by Moira [laughs] – sometimes, my eyebrows have risen a little when I’ve seen what I’ve been asked to set to music. But she’s a fantastic writer, and I think it’s great that she hasn’t written lyrics before and I haven’t set other writers’ words before. That’s what makes it a very fresh partnership, I think.
Moira Buffini (book & lyrics):
I remember the book [Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland] vividly. I remember really, really liking Alice, and really relating to her as this bold kid – always the one with the strong answers. I loved the weirdness of [the book], the dreamlike quality of it. I think the wonderful thing about the book is that it’s one of those stories that works on our subconscious, and you can make it mean different things according to what you bring to it. It’s endlessly reinventable.
Rufus Norris:
We’ve created wonder.land in a way that feels like an old-style production: get everybody in the room, throw everything up in the air, keep going keep going keep going, cut this, put that in, cut that, we need another song here, and so on. The only way you can work like this is to surround yourself with people who are absolutely up for the ride – who get it. We’ve got a real A team of collaborators, and everybody is absolutely at the top of his game.
wonder.land is now previewing at the Palace Theatre ahead of opening night on Thursday 2 July. For tickets, click here.