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Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll BBC Radio Play 1978 UK |
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A new musical adapted for radio with additional lyrics by JOHN WELLS music by CARL DAVIS directed by IAN COTTERELL with POLLY JAMES as Alice |
With glittering Scales the Quadraphon Spreads wide it's wond'rous wings: Melodious Creatures cry 'Come on!' And dance, as Alice sings. (John Wells) |
 n the early part of 1978 this then-new musical version of Alice in Wonderland was transmitted across Britain by the good old BBC in glorious stereophonic sound. It was also encoded in Quadrasound - an early 'surround sound' system - to get the effect of all the Wonderland characters running and reacting around the listener. This explains the little verse above by the way. Unfortunately, very few people actually had Quadrasound, so it was stereo for most of us, which worked well enough, despite the continuous jabbering. |
 Actress Polly James was well-known for her appearances in the long-running TV comedy sit-com, "The Liver Birds" (to all you readers outside the UK, that's "Liver" with a long "i" by the way). Her very posh accent as 'Alice' came as a complete surprise to those of us more used to hearing her wonderfully full-blown 'scouser' accent. I believe that's what they call 'acting', folks.She said at the time of the recording that she was bemused by all the attention the producers gave to the positioning of the actors and the way that everyone had to be continuously moving around the studio to get the surround effect while they desperately tried to read off their scripts at the same time. The play followed Lewis Carroll's plot exactly, but the story was entirely converted to first-person exposition to enable the radio audience to work out what was going on.  John Wells, in addition to his writing duties on 'Alice', played the Mad Hatter. He, John Fortune, and their long-time collaborator, John Bird (pictured here playing the Frog Footman in the 1966 Jonathan Miller 'Alice') were well known satirists, writers and performers at this time.
American composer Carl Davis had appeared in some of their TV productions as both performer and song writer. Ian Wallace, actor and light baritone singer of comic songs, played the Mock Turtle in this production as he had in the Jane Asher 'Alice'. |
 In amongst the rest of the cast, playing the roles of Mouse and the Duchess, is the familiar face of acclaimed actress, singer and comedienne Patricia Routledge, probably best known today as the redoubtable Mrs Bucket (pronounced the French way, "Bou-quet", of course) in the TV comedy sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances" (1990-1995).
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