Leaf bears witness to a mini night of magic and wonder as Getintothis’ Mattie Allen delves into the darkness of Malice in Wonderland.
Malice in Wonderland is the brainchild of Dom Newton, a Merseyside musician with musical stylings from a far off galaxy.
Acting as a follow up to his Hallowe’en performance last October, Newton formulated an Easter celebration based on Lewis Carroll‘s Alice in Wonderland, with a plethora of peculiar cameos from the whole cast of the magical original novel.
A motley crew of costumed foolk filed into Leaf, on Bold Street to view a musical performance quite unlike any taking place across Liverpool.
Support came from Harrison Atlantis, consisting of Jess Cody and Paul Cosgrove, who performed a selection of acoustic Alice in Wonderland themed songs as the opening act.
Just Us Hip Hop followed with a semi-improvisational display, handing out shouts and acknowledgements to members of the audience with particularly intriguing low budget costumes.
When Newton took to the stage, there was a sense that many months hard work were coming to fruition.
Beginning with The Freak Show, the night established a dark, sinister theme, before bleeding into It’s Come to This, which painted Alice – who had by now taken to the stage – as a fallen woman of questionable morals doing all she could to survive in a world that doesn’t quite meet up to that of Wonderland.
Alice was then tempted towards Wonderland by the eponymous White Rabbit, who led her around the crowd in a dreamlike daze before replacing her stage-front, transported into Wonderland.
As the set continued a variety of characters, from the Caterpillar to the Mad Hatter to an appearance from Carroll himself graced the stage, before the entire cast re-emerged for the finale during which they entered a dream-like state, and fell asleep on stage to rapturous applause.
Newton’s characteristic distortion-driven sound has become somewhat legend among his circle of loyal fans, but it was the quieter numbers that really told the emotion in a spectacular story.
After the show, Chew Disco‘s Khalil West polished off an assured set on the decks rounding off a mini wonder of an evening.
