Directed by Gavin Millar, 1985, 90 minutes.

In 1932 the elderly Alice Hargreaves (Coral Brown), for whom the Reverend Charles Dodgson, pen name Lewis Carroll (Ian Holm) wrote ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (1865) and ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ (1871) travels to New York to receive an honorary degree from Columbia University. The trip forces Alice to come to terms with her relationship with Carroll (Ian Holm) and her place in the creation of his Wonderland.

Dennis Potter and Lewis Carroll may appear an unlikely combination but upon closer examination connections become clearer. Potter had previously examined the relationship between Carroll and his muse in his controversial 1965 television play ‘Alice’. Both writers were drawn towards yet repelled by physical intimacy and Potter empathises with Carroll’s struggle to manage his sexuality. Potter examined the tension between sexual fantasy and social responsibility throughout his work, most particularly in ‘Pennies from Heaven’ (1978). His plays ‘Blue Remembered Hills’ (1979) and ‘The Singing Detective’ (1986) explore adult perceptions of childhood, the influence of memory on the formation of personality and how childhood trauma can distort adult life. In ‘Dreamchild’ Potter revisits these themes through the character of Alice as she struggles to understand her childhood relationship with Carroll.

Carroll’s faith and intellect helped him to transmute his unrequited longing into the Alice stories and his obsessions haunt their pages. He was fascinated by children and relentless in his pursuit of their company. It is unlikely that he ever consummated his desire physically, but these relationships remain acutely unsettling to modern sensibilities. Dodgson’s interest in photographing children has been interpreted as a sign that his friendship with Alice had ulterior motives but children, sometimes posed as classical or literary figures were a staple of early portrait photography. Changing tastes and a greater awareness of sexual exploitation have rendered some of these images disturbing to modern eyes but when seen alongside the work of Julia Margaret Cameron and other contemporary photographers they appear much less incongruous.

Wonderland has always been haunted by darker themes. Carroll was unafraid to introduce violence into his tales and was rarely sentimental. Writers and artists have responded to these qualities and Alice has found her place in popular culture from ‘The Matrix’ (Lilly and Lana Wachowski, 1999) to the steampunk baroque of America McGhee. Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer deployed Carroll’s creations to nightmarish effect in his ‘Alice’ (1987) which is closer in tone and themes to Carroll’s writing than some of Alice’s more psychedelic turns. The sharp edges of Carroll’s writing are due in part to his satirical references to Victorian society and politics. Carroll formed relationships with many of the great celebrities of his day including Ruskin, Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Alice books are full of cryptic references to Victorian culture and some readers have identified portraits of Carroll’s contemporaries amongst the denizens of Wonderland. Dodgson’s favoured artist John Tenniel was also political cartoonist, his illustrations still dictate how we visualise characters like the Hatter and Red Queen. In ‘Dreamchild’ the inhabitants of Wonderland are recreated by Jim Henson’s superb puppetry and capture all the whimsy and grotesquery of Tenniel’s style. Carroll’s creatures are better suited to puppetry or model work; Tim Burton’s and Disney’s hallucinogenic animations seem anodyne in comparison to Henson or Švankmajer’s visions of Wonderland.

Carroll’s books redefined children’s literature. They shift away from didactic religiosity and strident moralising towards a more complex relationship between author and reader. His Alice is level-headed and mature, a complex and believable character rather than an idealised role model. Amelia Shankley’s subtle and confident portrayal of the young Alice Liddell holds ‘Dreamchild’ steady; like all children, Alice can be manipulative and cruel, but she is also capable of simple, unquestioning love. Her performance is agreeably mercurial and never grating. The young Alice enjoys Dodgson’s attention but has no idea of how to respond. Simple friendship between child and adult does not fit into a world governed by rigid convention and social hierarchy. The shadow of social disapproval, as personified in the figure of her mother (Jane Asher) flits constantly over the bright summer days of Victorian Oxford and stains the fringes of Wonderland with suggestions of indecency. Alice’s mother burned Carroll’s letters to Alice, though her dislike for Carroll may have been motivated more by his inferior social status rather than any impropriety. In ‘Dreamchild’ the elderly Alice is unable to accept Carroll’s friendship without the worry that something impure lurked beneath his regard for her childhood self. Her attempts to interpret her past are hampered by her own mental decline. Potter’s reworking of the Mad Hatter’s tea party tilts into horror as the Hatter harangues the elderly Alice mercilessly, exploiting her confusion and fear of dementia. Carroll is an unresolved knot in her personality much like one of the semantic or mathematical puzzles of which Dodgson was so fond. Alice must examine her fading memories and rediscover her childhood self to unravel the conundrum and accept Carroll’s gift of the Alice stories, the purest expression of his love.

Ian Holm’s understated performance depicts Dodgson as a man in the throes of an impossible love, platonic but intensely passionate in its own way; a love which can find its only expression in the gift of his stories to Alice. Dodgson was a shy man, politically and socially conservative. In ‘Dreamchild’ his stutter is accentuated when in adult society (the impediment almost disappears when he is talking to Alice). He represents a stark contrast to the ideal men of Victorian Oxford, the athletic young crop of undergraduates favoured by Alice’s mother and later by Alice herself.

Director Gavin Millar had worked with Potter before (‘Cream in My Coffee’, 1980) and subsequently went on to direct the BBC adaption of Iain Banks’ ‘The Crow Road’ (1996). His stately, unobtrusive direction complements the elegant photography of Billy Williams, the cinematographer responsible for the opening sequence of William Friedkin’s ‘The Exorcist’ (1974). Production designer Roger Hall works hard to recreate depression era New York on a tight budget; at one point, the characters appear in a Hopperesque diner remarkably like the one in Herbert Ross’ film version of ‘Pennies from Heaven’ (1982). As elsewhere in Potter’s work, reality and fantasy sometimes intersect and staunchly Victorian Alice, like her fictional self, feels adrift in a strange new world. Unfortunately, the romance between Alice’s awkward young companion Lucy (Nicola Cowper) and raffish reporter Jack Dolan (Peter Gallagher) seems too convenient and in constant danger of lapsing into cliché but the emotional charge at the end of the film as Alice finally accepts, without reservation, the beauty of Dodgson’s gift is strong and very moving. Potter was disappointed with some of his forays into cinematic writing, but he had good reason to be very pleased with his ‘Dreamchild’.

Quotes:

“Either the well was very deep or she fell very slowly for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next”, Alice Hargreaves (Coral Browne) quoting from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’

“You stupid halfwit, ugly old hag, you should be dead, dead, dead”, The Mad Hatter (Mick Walter)

“At the time I was too young to see the gift whole; to see it for what it was, to acknowledge the love that had given it birth, but I see it now, at long, long last. Thank you Mr. Dodgson, thank you.” Alice Hargreaves (Coral Browne)

Connections:

Film

‘Alice in Wonderland’ directed by Norman Mcleod (1933)

‘Alice in Wonderland’ directed by Dallas Bower/Lou Bunin (1951)

‘Time Bandits’ directed by Terry Gilliam (1981)

‘Pennies from Heaven’ directed by Herbert Ross (1982)

‘The Company of Wolves’ directed by Neil Jordan (1984)

‘Alice’ directed by Jan Svankmajer (1988)

‘Photographing Fairies’ directed by Nick Willing (1997)

Television

‘Alice’ written by Dennis Potter, directed by Gareth Davies, BBC, 1965

‘Alice in Wonderland’ directed by Jonathan Miller, BBC, 1966

‘Pennies from Heaven’ written by Dennis Potter, directed by Piers Haggard, BBC, 1978

‘Blue Remembered Hills’ written by Dennis Potter, directed by Brian Gibson, BBC, 1979

‘The Singing Detective’ written by Dennis Potter, directed by Jon Amiel, BBC, 1987

Reading

Carroll, Lewis, The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, Introduction and Notes by Martin Gardner, Penguin, Revised Edition, 2000, ISBN 0713994177

NB. This edition is recommended for interested adult readers. It has the added benefit of Gardner’s detailed notes which can help the reader discover much of the hidden intricacy of the ‘Alice’ books but ‘Alice’ should also be enjoyed at face value and many editions are available. Sourdust favours the original illustrations by Tenniel but many great modern children’s illustrators have also interpreted the text.

Clark, A, The Real Alice, Schocken, New York, 1981

Potter on Potter, edited by Graham Fuller, Faber, 1993, ISBN 0571170463

Jones, J. E. and Gladstone J. F., The Red King’s Dream, Pimlico, 1995, ISBN 0712673067

Katie Roiphe: “Just good friends?”, The Guardian, Monday 29th October, 2001

Bailey, K and Sladen, S, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V and A Publishing, 2020, ISBN 9781838510046

Music

Tom Waits:  ‘Alice’, Anti, 2002, 6632-2