Tag:Mad Hatter
Alice in Wonderland is a much loved and immensely popular fairy tale by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll, and published in 1865. While Dodgson (1832-1898) was an English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, his novels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, are most remembered for.
The Story
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tell the story of a young girl who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams she saw and followed a white rabbit down a rabbit hole. During her time in wonderland, she has amazing and bizarre adventures, meeting many strange characters such as the Cheshire cat, blue caterpillar, the knave of hearts, Red Queen, White Queen, and of course, the tea party with the Mad Hatter.
The books have inspired countless films, performances, and ballets over the years and remain popular to this day.
Our concept shoot
We gathered our cast together for our concept shoot of a mad hatters tea party. Alice, plus the Red and White Queens, Mad Hatter, and White Rabbit, all participated. We took a little from the original story, melded it with Tim Burton’s version from the Disney film, and centred it around the tea party. I sourced the backdrops and costumes for our cast, and members contributed props and chairs to complete our scenes.
Alice
“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”
~Alice
Alice, a fictional character living in Victorian England, gives her age as seven and a half in the sequel, Through The Looking Glass. She is believed to be based on Alice Liddell, the daughter of the author’s friends.
Alice is a young girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes and wears a blue Victorian dress. Alice can memorise things quickly and recites poems and rhymes with ease.
The Mad Hatter
“I am under no obligation to make sense to you.”
~The Mad Hatter
While the books never referred to the Hatter as the ‘mad hatter’ because he was portrayed as ‘mad’, the title stuck. The mad hatter is stuck in a never-ending tea party as he angered the red queen and was sentenced to death for ‘murdering time’. While he escaped that fate, he is forever halted at 6.00 pm forever.
The White Rabbit
“Oh, my fur and whiskers! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”
The White Rabbit
Famous for his quote, “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!” the white rabbit is the first character Alice encounters in Wonderland.
The Red Queen
“I dont know what your mean by your way, all the ways about here belong to me..”
~The Red Queen
Our Red Queen is closer to Tim Burton’s version, where she is a combination of the Red Queen and Queen of Hearts. She is arrogant, bad-tempered, demanding, and fond of calling for people’s heads to be cut off when they displease her.
The White Queen
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
~The White Queen
Like the Red Queen, the White Queen is based upon a chess piece. The White Queen is the rightful ruler but has been usurped by her sister, the Red Queen, who has claimed the throne as her own.
Around 20 members of the Victorian Photographers Collective attended our shoot – plus helpers and cast throughout the day. Everyone had a fabulous time and their photographs coming out of the shoot looked great.
Our Cast
- Amelia – Alice
- Anjel Taylor – Mad Hatter
- Emily Reinhard – Red Queen
- Jess Garrett – White Queen
- Mark Busuttil – White Rabbit
Props
- Backdrops – Bevlea Ross
- Cakes – Carole Perry
- Chairs – Therese Kidd and Mark Busuttil
- China – Bevlea Ross, Kellye Wilson, Susan Martin, Glenda Laing
On our first full day in London, we went to Westminster Abbey, then the London Eye, followed by Mad Hatter High Tea at the Sanderson Hotel. Having no idea how the trains and oyster cards work, we headed to Woodside Station – bought an Oyster card. I loaded it with £20 and waited for our train to the city. For an entire two minutes! OMG, if only Melbourne’s trains ran like London. A train every three minutes on every line. We were on the Northern Line, so we had to get off at London Bridge station, a two-minute walk, jump on the Jubilee Line and get off at Westminster. So easy!
The streets of London
We wandered around Westminster a bit – had fun shooting the red double-decker buses as they went past, found a lovely garden to walk through, stopped off at New Scotland Yard and eventually made it to Westminster Abbey (nothing is a straight line when we have a camera in our hand)
Westminister Abbey
As was the story of our life on this trip, there were queues at Westminster Abbey. But not too bad. We were inside within about 20 mins, picked up our audio guides, and wandered around. Stunning building inside, but no photographs allowed. Which was disappointing, but I get it. There were sooooooo many people inside it was hard to move and get around. Put a camera in their hand, and it would come to a standstill. We were allowed to photograph the exterior, cloisters, and gardens, but inside the abbey, a big no-no.
London Eye
Leaving the Abbey, we headed back along the river and over the bridge to the London Eye. The River Thames seems to be still a ‘working’ river with barges of goods as well as pleasure craft heading up and down it. Unlike the Yarra River around the docklands, where it’s just pleasure craft and working, vessels are kept to other areas. It seemed very strange 😉
Security was very tight getting onto the eye (good lol), but we had a fast track entry and getting on didn’t take too long. There are 32 pods on the eye – one for each borough of London, and a ride takes around 30 mins. Unfortunately, the best view – was shooting into the sun, so the light was challenging.
Mad Hatter High Tea
By the time we were off the eye and had made our way through crowds of people, we were cutting it fine to get to our High Tea booking for 3:30 pm. So we found a London Cab and took that. The price was quite reasonable, I think, from memory, it cost us about £8 for the half-hour trip to the Sanderson Hotel.
High Tea was nothing short of amazing. We started with delicious cocktails, followed by individual pots of tea, then our platter with savoury and sweet. And no one had room for the scones with jam and cream… I know… criminal!
Days End
After high tea, we did a little bit of shopping in Oxford Street – then back to the station and back up the hill and up the two floors to our room… days total was 11.5 kms and 15 flights of stairs… that night’s dinner was very late and very light!
