"This is hip-hop dance, and opera house rules do not apply." That's the message that comes through loud and clear at the start of "The Mad Hatter's Tea Party".
The 10th-anniversary run of ZooNation's staging of "Alice in Wonderland" has returned to the Royal Opera House in London, where it premiered a decade ago. And right from the outset the audience is encouraged to "make as much noise as possible", said Siobhan Murphy in The Stage.
The action begins in the "forbidding" Ward W at Ladrington Brook, a "Institution for Extremely Normal Behaviour", where a "motley collection of inpatients is kept under lock and key". Each of Lewis Carroll's characters has been given a backstory: the White Rabbit, for example, has OCD, while the Mad Hatter is suffering from mercury poisoning.
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An "irresistibly feelgood production", it's filled with "ebullient" dancing and a "disarming, beat-driven melange of funk, rap and house". Add to the mix Ben Stones's "wizardly costumes" and you're in for a real "treat".
Prince's choreography "works wonders", allowing each performer to "let rip magnificently", and while Act I is "bursting with goodies", the "pacier" Act II is an "undiluted joy". As for the cast, there is "no weak link"; Nethra Menon is a "beguilingly impish" Queen of Hearts, while Isaac Baptiste is a "lively and decidedly charming" Mad Hatter.
As the show draws to a close, the audience is asked whether anyone would like to join the cast on stage and the results are "marvellous". Watching a "tiny boy grooving gleefully with the March Hare spoke volumes about the show's all-enveloping wackiness and warmth".
"The Mad Hatter's Tea Party" is running until 24 September, Royal Opera House, London
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