Guest Blog: James Seager On The Return Of ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND

Personally, I don't think there's any point bringing back a show unless you can improve it, which is why we've revisited Alice's Adventures Underground for 2017.

Oliver Lansley and I (from theatre company Les Enfants Terribles) first had the idea for the show in 2012. We believed that the best way to tell Alice's story was to immerse the audience in it, as opposed to watching it on stage. When you read the Lewis Carroll novel, you want to go to Wonderland, and that was always our starting point.

The next step in putting an audience into an immersive realm is to ask "What is their role and who are they are in this world?" As soon as we embarked on the idea that it would be "Your adventure, not Alice's", and the audience would be directly involved in this narrative, the creative process flowed from there.

When we first opened Alice's Adventures Underground in 2015 we really felt we were pushing the boundaries of immersive theatre and were delighted by the response from audiences - and to receive our first Olivier Award nomination alongside our co-producer ebp. Bringing the show back has given us a huge opportunity to improve on what we learnt in 2015 and really focus on the most important thing in any show: the story.

It's all very well being immersed in an incredibly designed world, but it means nothing if the audience are not engaged in the actual story of it. Now we're back and being even more ambitious, continuing to push the boundaries of what's possible.

Our aim was always to create a large-scale immersive show that feels intimate, which is why even though 670 people see the show each night they are split into groups of 14 with multiple narrative journeys.

Revolutionising what is expected of an audience and how they affect the overall story was our starting point to this new version. It has changed significantly since 2015, as we've put the audience at the forefront of their own adventure.

This has a huge effect on the overall narrative, and consequently made the whole rehearsal process harder for everyone with actors sharing roles and scenes. For example, we have 12 entry times for the audience over the course of an evening, but due to the mechanics of the show, actors dart around doing different scenes at different stages of the narrative for different audience entries at different times!

The audience are never aware of this and will only see the same reappearing characters, but the logistics to get such a complicated show working are huge. We created spreadsheets, routes and actor plans from the script before beginning work in the rehearsal room.

The entire show is controlled by a 'timecode'. Every scene has been planned and timed to fit within the overall timecode. For the show to run effectively the cast have to stick to it to the second, not only to ensure the audiences entering and starting the show at 15-minute intervals don't bump into each other, but to avoid disrupting the other narratives happening at the same time. It's like a domino effect - if one thing goes wrong, it screws up the whole show!

Creating this workable timecode was fundamental in the preparation process, which was then refined during technical rehearsals. For it to work effectively we had to teach the cast a method of acting never really done before and instil the confidence in them to trust the timecode. There is a hidden cue at the end of a scene so the cast know when they have to finish, and when they hear that cue they HAVE to finish the scene.

As with any show we rely enormously on the huge amount of people we collaborate with, and bringing likeminded artists to the table who we trust has been absolutely key. I've had the pleasure of working with some of the best in the business over the past six months to bring this incredible, unforgettable, and unique show to the 'stage'. I promise you won't have seen anything like this before...

Alice's Adventures Underground at the Vaults until 23 September

James Seager is the co-director of Alice's Adventures Underground and producer for Les Enfants Terribles

Photo credit: Rah Petherbridge Photography