Image: Poster advertising ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at the Winter Garden Theatre, 1959. V&A Collection, museum no. S.138-1995

This lecture will be given via Zoom Webinar. Please book on this page and we will email you the live link 24 hours before the event.

When Lewis Carroll finished penning his Alice stories, he wrote to his brother Edwin expressing a view that “they would be popular as an entertainment.” Little did Carroll know that one day Wonderland plays, operas, musicals, ballets and films would take to screens and stages across the world and entertain generation after generation.

In this talk, Simon Sladen explores the many adaptations of Carroll’s tale, from 1886’s inaugural stage production Alice in Wonderland to 2020’s Alice in Streamingland created during lockdown. Key films will also be considered as he seeks to analyse the books’ enduring legacy and significant relationship with the performing arts.

Simon Sladen is Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He is a member of the curatorial team for the V&A’s next major exhibition Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser and co-edited the accompanying publication.

For more information on Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, visit https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/alice-curiouser-and-curiouser