BWW Reviews: ALICE ON THE UNDERGROUND, Chickenshed Studio, October 8 2014

I wasn't born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see

I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That's how it's been all around me

(The Clash 1979)

This is life on the Riverbank Estate for 14-year-old Alice and she's had enough. London is calling, so she goes in search of Love, leaving her dysfunctional family and neighbours to forget their differences as they search for her, lost in the supermarkets and tube stations.

With music by Jo Collins and Dave Carey and words by Chris Bond and Paula Rees. Alice on the Underground (at Chickenshed until 25 October) is an extraordinary concoction - part Alice in Wonderland, part Spirited Away and part The Warriors. Just as the destination justifies Alice reaching the rock bottom of the tube system, the show justifies your trip to the very top of the Piccadilly Line.

With a band on stage and musicians rotating in and out of roles, Alice (Emma Cambridge, sweetly innocent and with a beautifully heartfelt singing voice) finds out about how dangerous life can be away from the tough love of her rough and tumble family. Guided by the breakdancing White Rabbit, she finds herself in some of the metropolis's darker corners, a London that Hogarth would recognise with its boozers, its floozies and its thieves. But she gets by with a little help from her friends and finds the Love she needs - and deserves.

A little grim? Not a bit of it! With songs in a variety of styles (as pleasing as "Joseph" in its eclectic musical mix), brilliant comic acting (Iain Whitmore's loverboy Elvis impersonator is a standout) and sensational singing (Belinda McGuirk, looking a little like Dolly Parton and sounding a lot like Homer Simpson's very own Lurleen Lumpkin is fantasic), this production feels like a big West End show scaled into an intimate venue. At a tenner a ticket, it's the best value in London theatre - nay, make that the best value in London!

It's not without an edge though and its Age 12+ advisory note is to be heeded. That said, everyone should listen to the immigrant mother's song about how her baby, who hears only bad things, is turning into a piglet - it's as moving as "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" from South Pacific, and every bit as necessary.

More than ten years after this show was first performed and 40 years on from Chickenshed's founding, productions as strong and as uplifting as this one augur well for its next generation of actors and musicians drawn from the full diversity of 21st century society. Don't miss it! Just remember to look out for a somersaulting rabbit and get off at Cockfosters, not Southgate!

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