August Bank Holiday Weekend 2011

Blist Hill Victorian Town museum is on the outskirts of Telford on Legges Lane and events coordinator Jane Little has run ‘Alice’ weekends there for three years now and this is becoming the UK’s premier ‘Alice’ event. In terms of numbers the weekends have proved very popular as typically an ‘Alice’ event pulls in a crowd of around 1700 per day, luckily the site is so large that there is no over crowding! The museum is on a huge site and is essentially a Victorian town with a Doctor’s house, a photographer, a blacksmith’s forge etc. It is worth a visit even if there is no event going on. The museum is open every day except the Christmas/New Year Bank holidays. There is even a working inclined plane lift (left) for those who want to avoid the walk down or up the hill on the site.

The event this year was well attended and I was invited along to give a talk on the Sunday.    Nicol Thompson, Llandudno Alice, was also there and she enjoyed her day out also. This is Nicol (left) with some of the Blists Hill characters.
    Interesting to Carrollians was that the cast put on their own version of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ in a half hour play. The action was very fast but despite this it was also very credible.

The ‘Alice’ competition was judged by Nicol from Llandudno. She didn’t judge the other characters contest though and the prize was awarded to a Harry, a boy dressed loosely as a Mad Hatter. Amy James, on the right here, had a spectacular Queen of Hearts costume on and should really have had a prize of her own as she was outstanding as The Queen of Hearts.

Also there was Kaleidoscope Theatre from Kemberton, Shropshire. Their cast perform wonders in mime and over the years have become firm favourites to see at this event. Each year the show is different from the year before and this adds to the interest. Here they pose with Nicol from Llandudno.

The Kaleidoscope Theatre are very talented and this year there were a few newcomers on the cast list. One day we hope they can be seen in Daresbury giving an ‘Alice’ show. We will have to see what can be arranged for next year!

The patrons that Kaleidoscope Theatre have had are:

David Bradley, Wendy Craig, Judi Dench, Jerome Flynn, Susan Hill, Glenys Kinnock, Antony Sher, Richard Stilgoe & Alan Titchmarsh.

Quite an impressive amount of professional support there!