Alice’ is New Year’s Day Treat!

abracaDABra! is to broadcast Lewis Carroll’s classic story ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ as a New Year’s Day treat.

We’ll follow Alice on her journey into a strange and magical land where she encounters all kinds of curious creatures and charachters. She has to mind her manners, as many are so easily offended and sometimes behave very badly indeed!

The chapters, intertwined with a range of music and song, will air as a three hour special at 10am and again at 5pm. The story is read by Peter Schofield and produced by the Serious Music Business.

Listeners to our station who missed it on New Year’s day or who wish to enjoy their favorite moments again, please be sure to listen on Friday at 7pm when it will be retold, beginning with the first episode on the 15th of January!!

“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (also known by its shorter title “Alice in Wonderland) was originally published nearly 150 years ago, in November 1865.

It was three years before this that the author, Lewis Carrol, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson had first told the story to three young girls during a long boat trip up the River Thames. The girls were the daughters of Henry George Liddell, vice-chancellor of Oxford University. One of them, named Alice, loved it so much that she asked Dodgson to write it down for her. Alice waited two years before Dodgson granted her wish and gave her the completed, hand written manuscript with his own illustrations.

This original version was called “Alice’s Adventures Underground”. It consisted of four chapters and was about half the length of the now famous one published a year later, which added several key characters including the Cheshire Cat, March Hare and Mad Hatter.

The story has now been translated into 125 different languages and over 100 editions of the book have been published, it has never been out of print.

Also coming soon to Abracadabra will be the equally enchanting sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass!