Review: Janice Honeyman’s Alice in Wonderland brings load shedding and electric cars to Joburg Theatre

From lighting that is very Wonderland in how it just can’t compare to your average coloured light bulbs to free-flowing costumes that make the choreography seamless and the Pinkie Up TikTok challenge, Janice Honeyman has done it again.

Returning to the Joburg Theatre for her 39th Pantomime, the seasoned director reminds audiences yet again why these productions are among the most highly anticipated items on Johannesburg’s annual theatre calendar.

#NoDNAJustRSA

• Janice Honeyman’s Alice in Wonderland

• Joburg Theatre

• Now on until 24 December

• Tickets from R170 on Webtickets

Only Honeyman would bring an electric car to the Joburg Theatre stage only to refer to it as “something called the future.”

Writing “If we can’t save Joburg, let’s at least save the planet” in her Alice in Wonderland pantomime is a well-done play on climate change and environmentalism that touches on the city’s failing infrastructure and water scarcity.

“No one makes better tea than you and Five Roses,” says Dame Nanny Fanny Floppalot, played by Desmond Dube, who is back for his eighth pantomime and second appearance as a dame.

This was yet another uncanny Janice Honeyman Mzansification of a classic fairytale. When the Dame describes her ex-husbands as a banker who lost interest, being picked up by the rubbish man and the electrician who went off like load shedding, the audience understand that it doesn’t get more #NoDNAJustRSA than the panto.

The country’s long-lost soccer accessory, the vuvuzela, also made an appearance alongside Checkers Sigisty Sigisty, which was a play on South Africa being a cultural melting pot, chakalaka and other items that you absolutely need South African nuance to comprehend.

But it’s still a classic fairytale!

If you love 3D cinema, you’ll enjoy Alice’s unfortunate fall down the rabbit hole. I’d describe it, but no vocabulary will do it better justice than letting you go and experience the pantomime for yourself.

When an uncertain Alice held the infamous small bottle labelled “DRINK ME,” a small voice in the auditorium that must have belonged to a young audience member said, “drink the muti.”

This wasn’t part of the script, but there’s never been a truer representation of the pantomime’s spontaneity and interactiveness.

At some point my plus-one even joked about Alice getting in her 10,000 steps because the little girl did loads of walking!

If you haven’t yet noticed Lesedi Rich as one of the most promising musical theatre stars, imagine the same performer playing Pinocchio 's naughty friend, Lampwick in last year’s pantomime, Donkey in Shrek and now the flamboyant Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.

A set that matches costumes

The set for this year’s pantomime was designed by Andrew Timm, and I absolutely had to catch up with him because the way the colour schemes matched the cast’s costumes was insane!

He shared how Honeyman’s vision with Alice in Wonderland was for various scenes to represent certain areas in art history.

Working closely with costume designer Mariska Meyer made it easier to curate the best colour schemes that would complement the cast. A pink and turquoise colour scheme for the Queen of Hearts, whose dominant shade was red for example, was to emphasise how she wasn’t exactly the most stylish queen.

When I share how my plus-one and I argued about which parts of the set were digital and which ones were made of fabric, Andrew reveals that they used a lot of LED screens and projections.

“But what we have done over the years is to actually match the colours and the lighting so carefully that people don't know what is projection and what’s an image. Our graphics very much have the look and feel of the lighting,” Andrew explained.

The dame’s car, he says, is part of Honeyman’s pantomime tradition because whether it’s a motorbike or a minibus taxi, she always brings a motor vehicle on stage, mixing the British tradition of fairytales with contemporary South Africa.

“Because we are technically not set in a Victorian era, there are those South African references, listing brand names and bringing in social media. So while it’s a very strange mixture of historical story and up-to-date references, audiences really love it."

He says Honeyman takes an inclusive approach, allowing the cast input on the slang so that the younger audiences who come to the theatre can also know it's genuine.

Having seen pantomimes on Broadway and the West End, Andrew asserts that South African theatre is on the same level if not greater because of the effort and thought put into the graphics.