IT SOUNDS like such a wonderfully whimsical idea, doesn’t it?

Alice in Wonderland in the Park. Have a picnic. Bring the family.

And in the main that’s exactly what it is, a beautifully performed and superbly cast colourful extravaganza.

There is tremendous imagination at work in realising the book for the stage, Alice’s frustration at being unable to enter Wonderland being a particularly memorable scene.

Clad in blue and white gingham dress and big black boots, former Liverpool Community College student Aiysha Nugent-Robinson barely puts a foot wrong in the title role.

But if she is challenged for top honours by Eleanor Stephens as Alice’s sister/Cook/ Dormouse, realistically it is unfair to single out individuals in the tremendously talented multi-tasking cast.

And if it’s not all fun and games, that’s no slight on the production.

A children’s classic Alice may be – and my nine-, five-, and three-year-olds all had a whale of a time at the park – but it has an undeniably unsettling edge in parts that Off the Ground convey very well before returning to the jollity.

Andrew Greenhalgh