Published: 11 March 2010
by OLD RED LION THEATRE

THE tiny Old Red Lion Pub Theatre is a befitting venue for this entertaining new Music Hall-inspired show, written by Sarah Sigal and performed by the all-female cast of Fluff Productions.  

Not a story of a child on a fantastic, hallucinogenic adventure, this is the tale of an inquisitive about-to-be-grown-up girl on a journey of intellectual and political discovery. 

The year is 1882 and this Alice is the 17-year-old youngest daughter of an aristocratic Irish family, who sets out in search of her mother after discovering that she has not died in an accident – as she had always been told – but had in fact abandoned her husband and children with her lover, leaving Alice’s father, an alcoholic, to raise her and her two older brothers alone. 

Her quest takes her from the Irish countryside to the Wild West via London and New York, an adventure which exposes her to new worlds through her encounters – with an opium-smoking bohemian poet and her ardent but vulnerable socialist friend, a hysterical New York socialite, a gun-toting Colorado cattle-rustler with four dead husbands, and Oscar Wilde. 

The play promises to explore “myths about women, sexuality and gender relations in the Victorian era”. Surely a well-worn topic? What can there be  left that hasn’t already been explored? 

We learn that this is an age in which death is more socially acceptable than divorce and a woman may be pushed into a loveless marriage for the sake of duty. This all seems like old news. But is it? Aren’t the questions being asked – about the choices to be made between social obligation and individual freedom, still relevant? And are these issues for women only?  

And is society really any more accepting today of a woman who abandons her children? 

With strong performances from the entire cast, this energetic and witty new play is loads of fun. 

Go and see it.

Until March 13 • 020 7837 7816