Join Duck Does as he retells Lewis Carroll’s famous childrens’ story in his own unique style in Duck’s Adventures in Wonderland.
This journey down the rabbit hole all started with Duck Does mad (Hatter). I enjoyed recreating the Hatter so much my husband suggested having a go at some of the other characters, too.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin…
So this is where the story starts: a hot day on the river bank with a little girl feeling very sleepy and stupid. A story where a little girl goes down the rabbit hole after one very late rabbit …
Of course, like most things in life, nothing is ever straight forward. She finds a key and the small door which it unlocks. A beautiful garden awaits on the other side, but alas she is too big to fit through the opening.
No worries: there’s a drink on the table which will make her small. So, Alice drinks the potion. Good news: she shrinks without being poisoned. Bad news: she leaves the key on the tall table. Bother! The word she actually uses is a lot stronger but I’m a nice girl.
But what’s this? Thankfully, somebody more intelligent than Alice realised that she would be a complete doofus and do that, so he left a bit of cake with the antedote underneath the table. Well, phew!
So, Alice eats the cake (not dissimilar to a victoria sponge, although lacking cream, which would have gone off having been left out of the fridge). Sure enough, she gets bigger again and retrieves the key.
Doh! If you’re keeping up you’ll know why.
Alice is pretty upset by her predicament. And yes, it is a rather large pool of tears, as Alice is now the size of a giant. As the saying goes: from one extreme to the other.
However, the fact that she now has her very own pond (remember that our Alice is a duck) does cheer the little lass up. Alice is now feeling so chipper that she starts singing and inadvertently scares the poor White Rabbit, who’s making his way down the hallway. If you’re familar with Duck Does Broadway or Duck Does Sings Once More, you’ll understand.
The White Rabbit is so startled by the ‘singing’ that he drops his white gloves and fan. Alice paddles over to the tiny items and picks them up. All of a sudden, she starts to shrink and Alice’s pond becomes an ocean, at which point she starts to get delusions of gradeur.
However, she quickly snaps back into reality as she remembers the little door. Yes! She can fit now!
Poop! Again, I’m a nice girl. She left the key back on the table.
Unfortunately, the smart individual who left the cake underneath the table last time, hadn’t quite accounted for the level of stupidity that they were up against.
And just to add insult to injury, when Alice turns around she discovers that her ocean is full of other animals.
Alice decides: if you can’t beat them join them. She waddles back to ‘her’ ocean and strikes up a conversation with a mouse…about her cat, Dinah.
Having deeply offended the mouse, Alice felt that he should at least help him back to the shore. So we find them on the bank of Alice’s ocean with a weird and wonderful collection of birds, some of whom are not accustomed to sopping-wet feathers.
Despite being the smallest member of the group, Mouse takes control of the situation. Everyone listens as this mouse is now in a very bad mood. Mouses attempts to dry the party off with some Norman history. Surprisingly, it isn’t effective.
So, in steps the Dodo, who despite having been extinct for over 300 years, comes up with a more practical solution: a caucus-race.
Did you know that a caucus is a kind of political conference? This is where candidates can be nominated and policies planned. In Mr Carroll’s story, the race is pretty much defined as lots of animals running around like headless chickens…
Having dried out, everyone is declared a winner, and Alice redeems herself by handing out chocolates from her factory. Now that sounds like my kind of race.
Unfortunately, Alice never undertood the saying: quit while you’re ahead. She ploughs straight back into reminiscing about her dear pet cat, only to find that she is ‘Billy no-mates’ again.
As a total aside, does anyone think that when Duck Does Dodo, he looks a little like Gonzo from The Muppets? I think it’s the large nose and blue-grey colouring, but now all I can see is Gonzo conducting chickens 🙄:
Back to the story…
However, Alice isn’t alone for long, as the White Rabbit realises that he dropped his fan and gloves. Now he’s even later than before and so flustered that he mistakes Alice for Mary Ann, his housemaid.
Alice goes to pick up the fan and gloves that she found earlier. They are nowhere to be seen. In actual fact, everything around her is looking quite different. Worse still, someone has run off with her pond/ocean.
Being rather small and wanting to avoid White Rabbit going into ‘thumper’ mode, Alice hurries off to the rabbit’s house to fetch a new fan and pair of gloves.
She soon finds what she’s looking for but also happens across a small bottle. Being a curious kind of lass, and also wanting to avoid being stomped to death by foul-tempered bunny, she drinks the potion.
Yep, just as she thought. She starts to grow. Small issue: she’s now trapped inside White Rabbit’s house.
Just then, White Rabbit turns up to see where ‘Mary Ann’ has got to and discovers a giant duck girl in his house. White Rabbit is not amused. He sends a small lizard (Little Bill) down the chimney to remedy the situation.
Alice swiftly kicks the poor reptile. Bill shoots back up the chimney and is airbourne. He’s emotionally scarred for life, but physically in fairly good shape.
As no one else really wants a repeat performance, they instead decide to throw cakes at the giant girl. Alice approves of this tactic. She eats the cakes and begins to shrink.
Back to stompable size, Alice waddles and flaps for all she’s worth and finds herself in a wood with a very excitable pup who wants to play fetch with the new squeaky toy that’s just appeared. He’s been in training for this for months.
At the exact moment the pup prepares to go for the throat, Alice spots a hazel stick and tosses it into the air. Pup dashes off into the sunset; Alice waddles and flaps as fast as she can in the opposite direction. Finally, Alice can waddle and flap no more, so she rests against a buttercup stem and fans herself with one of the leaves.
Alice is now small for the third time. It’s been a busy morning of yo-yo dieting. Eager to pile on the pounds again, Alice starts to think about cake. Nope, no cake about. But there is a spotty red toadstool. Hmm. Surely there could be no harm in eating that. Really? With this reckless attitude towards eating and drinking, it is nothing short of a miracle that Alice is still alive.
Alice is just about to take her first bite out of the stem when she hears a rather annoyed voice: ‘Who are you and how did you get in here?’ If you don’t know the answer, go watch ‘Rendezvous at Big Gulch’, Police Squad.
Alice removes her teeth (from the toadstool) and peeks above the rim. There she sees a blue caterpillar. Alice introduces herself and explains that she simply followed a rabbit down a hole (she didn’t have a good punchline). She also explains that she’s having a really tough morning and is feeling quite unlike herself but this little larva isn’t big on empathy.
After several minutes the caterpillar is clearly bored. As he shuffles away, he nonchalantly remarks that one side of the toadstool will make you grow and the other side shrink.
‘Quack!’ But Alice has no time to flap about the lack of basic courtesy these days and sets about eating the toadstool. Getting the recipe right is not easy; and she begins that long game of adding more milk, then adding more flour to soak up the excess milk, then adding more milk because the spoon won’t budge, then adding more flour because one got a bit over-zealous with the milk, etc. If you’re a baker, you’ll know that game well.
Alice eventually returns to her normal size, but not before upsetting a sensitive pigeon in the treetops. Many thanks to Penelope, Duck’s longtime pond-side partner, for her assistance in retelling this part of the story. Duck Does has promised her first dibs on the farmhouse loaf that the kind lady in the yellow hat always brings on a Tuesday.