Alice Through the Looking Glass (1998)   Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Steve Coogan, Ian Holm and Geoffrey Palmer Second Sight RRP: £12.99 2NDVD3222 Certificate: 15 Available 07 November 2011

Alice, who has already visited Wonderland, is now a mother. Reading a story to her child reminds Alice of her previous adventure, so she once again finds herself in Wonderland. She meets the Red Queen who sets Alice a task to move through the various squares of her realm, in the hopes of eventually becoming a queen...

Alice through the Looking Glass (1998 - 1 hr, 23 min, 35 sec) is a television adaptation of Lewis Carol’s second ‘Alice’ book. The show was directed by John Henderson from a Nick Vivian screenplay, which is a fairly faithful adaptation of the story. The film was nominated for a BAFTA for design.

The show has to be put into perspective as this was designed to be shown on television, therefore the cast might be great, but the effects are going to be limited. Alice is played by Kate Beckinsale, who has gone on to greater, well tighter, things. She certainly isn’t bad in the part and it helps that she has a good supporting cast which includes Sian Phillips (the Red Queen), Geoffrey Palmer (White King), Steve Coogan (Gnat), Ian Holm (White Knight), Gary Olsen (Tweedle-Dum) and Marc Warren (Tweedle-Dee).

This should have been a wonderful production and, in truth, it does follow the book closely, but it does so at a breakneck speed and with a mentality that is better suited to 1960’s surreal movies than to children’s TV.

Worth a look for the cast and its strange approach to the text. It only really falls down because its thinks it’s clever than it actually turns out to be.

The DVD disc contains no extras and the picture is showing its age.

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Charles Packer