“Miller imbues the familiar story with entirely new meanings, situating the implied adult viewer as a spectator upon the youthful Alice, rather than forging an emotional identification with events from her perspective.”
Screened in tribute to Jonathan Miller (1934 - 2019)
Jonathan Miller's BBC adaptation of Lewis Carol's classic novel is unique among Alice films in that not only was it intended for an adult audience, but most of the Wonderland characters are played by actors in standard Victorian dress (including a real cat used to represent the Cheshire Cat). Miller justified his approach as an attempt to return to what he perceived as the essence of the story: "Once you take the animal heads off, you begin to see what it's all about. A small child, surrounded by hurrying, worried people, thinking 'Is that what being grown up is like?'" The cast boasts a number of prominent British actors including Michael Redgrave, John Gielgud, Peter Sellers, two of Miller's fellow cast members from Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook and Alan Bennett, as well as Wilfrid Brambell, Michael Gough, Leo McKern, Malcolm Muggeridge, John Bird and Eric Idle.
