Alice

A new play by Christopher Knowles, based on the writings of Charles Dodgson

Carroll and Alice (extract from the programme)
Lewis Carroll and his 'Alice' books are known and loved by children and adults throughout the world. They have been translated into many languages and a society exists to promote research into Carroll's life and work.
However, Lewis carroll did not actually exist, except as the nom-de-plume of the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodson, who spent most of his life (1832-1889) in Christ Church, Oxford, first as an undergraduate, then as a mathematics don and finally as curator of the senior common room. Although he was a highly competent mathematician, logician and philosopher with several published works to his credit, he was know in his own day as an eccentric inventor, and exceptional amateur photographer - one of the most eminent pioneers - a passionate lover of the theatre and a great favourite with children, in whose company he felt far more at ease than in that of adults, and soon lost the stammer which afflicted him in adult conversation. In fact, the dodo in 'Wonderland' ridicules his own occasional difficulty in pronouncing his own surname, Dodo-Dodgson!
Dodgson often claimed that he loved 'all children except boys', which explains the objectionable natures of Tweedledum and Tweedledee and the pronounced masculinity of the female faces of the 'baddies' in Tenniel's illustrations - the Duchess and the Queen.
The Alice of the stories was Alice Pleasance Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church who, with her two sisyters, accompanied Dodgson and the Rev. Robinson Duckworth of Trinity on the boat trip on the river Isis on the 'golden' agfternoon when Dodgson told thetale of Wonderland. Alice was ten, Dodgson thirsty, and the date: friday, 5th July, 1862.