From 1964 to 1970, the BBC aired a weekly television program called
The Wednesday Play. Each installment featured a different unrelated story, often based on stage dramas or sometimes other sources, such as books. The episode which aired during the last Wednesday of 1966 was "Alice in Wonderland", based on Lewis Carroll's novel that was introduced 101 years earlier.
When the story was first published in 1865, it had characters that supposedly represented real-life Victorian-era monarchs Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. And so, in
The Wednesday Play version (directed by the British stage and TV legend, Sir Jonathan Miller), the effort was made to reverse that. It showed
Alice in Wonderland characters "as they really were". So the Queen of Hearts and King of Hearts are shown as Queen Victoria (Alison Leggatt;
Day of the Triffids, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution) and Prince Albert (Peter Sellers;
The Pink Panther films,
Doctor Strangelove, Casino Royale, Being There).
Alice herself was played by newcomer Anne-Marie Mallik, but Peter Cook (
Bedazzled, The Princess Bride) played The Mad Hatter, and Michael Gough (
Batman films,
Out of Africa) played the March Hare. Sir Michael Redgrave (the legendary father of Vanessa and Lynn) played The Caterpillar, and the role of The Duchess was filled by none other than Leo McKern (
LadyHawke, The Prisoner). Alan Bennett (who in 1985 was part of
Dreamchild, a story about Lewis Carroll) played The Mouse, and Peter Eyre (
Dragonslayer, From Hell) was the Knave of Hearts. The Mock Turtle was none other than Sir John Gielgud (
Chariots of Fire, Becket, Ghandi, The Elephant Man, Arthur). And any sharp-eyed watcher will spot none other than Eric Idle (
Monty Python's Flying Circus, Transformers: The Movie, Suddenly Susan, Shrek: The Third) in an early, uncredited role.
Late last week the folks at BBC America
mentioned in their blog that
The Wednesday Play - Alice in Wonderland is coming to North American home video soon, in the first part of 2010. It will be including a neat little extra, too. Here's the appropriate part of their post, that explains about it:
Look for the DVD early next year. For extras, we are pursuing Dennis Potter's 1965 teleplay Alice, starring George Baker and Deborah Watling, which tells the poignant story behind the book. This play became the basis for Potter's 1985 film Dreamchild.
Good show! We don't have the actual release date schedule yet, nor the package art or anything else so far. But we'll bring that to you once BBC Video makes their formal announcement, so stay tuned!
