Eccentric notions

Excuse the knickers. I did very nearly crop them off, but in the end I thought I'd let you see how the suspender belt works, because I strongly suspect it's like one of mine... and if our Alice is about my size, she'll be very welcome to borrow one of mine for the duration of the play. After all, it's only twenty minutes. She's not going to stretch it out of shape. She will, however, need something to hold up these rather frabjous (to use an appropriate adjective) stockings; so if she's significantly larger or smaller than I am, she will need some garters instead. I have no idea how big she is yet. She won't be cast till, at the earliest, tomorrow night.

The lady in charge of the drama group wanted me to do two things over the last week or so. One of them was to hack the script down to twenty minutes (she found out I could write, you see, so she's taking full advantage of that fact! I don't mind, for the most part, but hacking down a favourite story is a little sad), and the other was to produce a full costume budget. Both of these things were quite difficult to do and required a certain amount of unexpected thinking outside the box. The script proved to be impossible to hack to the required extent without losing several characters (on the bright side, it does now look as if we're going to be one actor to a role); sometimes that just meant cutting out a whole scene, for instance the one with the Mock Turtle, but sometimes it was more complicated than that. I had to lose both the Fish Footman and the Frog Footman, but Frog in particular had some important dialogue; so in the end I just brought the Cheshire Cat in a little earlier and gave it versions of the lines that really mattered. And then there was the Dormouse. He got axed because he had so few lines anyway, but I was not going to pass up on the Mad Hatter trying to put him in the teapot... so our Dormouse will be asleep for the duration of the tea party, he will be a cuddly toy, and I plan to get hold of a particularly enormous teapot.

As for the budget... well, obviously, we are a small and very new group. It does seem that the organiser is quite persuasive and knows about the procedures for wheedling funding out of people, which is splendid, because what I know about that sort of thing could be written on the back of a postage stamp with a chisel marker. She also seems to be on very friendly terms with Local Arts Organisation Lady (the one who made all the encouraging noises about my concerts but didn't provide any actual support; well, for the drama group, it appears she might). Nonetheless, this still isn't the Royal Vic. I thought I had better count everything in - not just the costumes, but all the props we don't already have or can't borrow elsewhere; granted, Alice is the only one with a full costume, but even so, with all the props and so on, I thought we'd be doing well to end up with a budget much under £300.

In fact, once I'd added everything up, it came to just a lick over £250, so... we're doing well, and the organiser is absolutely delighted. The main expense is obviously Alice's costume: two patterns (for the dress and the pinafore); four metres each of blue cotton poplin and white cotton lawn (those are guesstimates, as unfortunately you can't see the back of either of the pattern envelopes on Minerva, so I went with experience and rounded up to ensure we aren't short); anti-static lining and dress net for the petticoat; blue thread; those stockings (which are perfect but don't come at all cheap); and... I stuck five metres of waistband elastic on the budget.

Five metres? Well, yes. Some of it may end up in the petticoat, although I do have some cheap elastic that I may put in there instead - it's a question of how much is left over. But I'm working on two assumptions here. One is that Alice needs garters, and the other is that the Caterpillar is going to need cinching. In a big way.

The Caterpillar is very easy, on the face of it. All you need is a duvet cover, ideally a blue one because the script says he's blue, but if we can't find a blue one it's a lot simpler to change that one word in the script than to go and buy one. But then I realised that the Caterpillar wouldn't just need it to be held up under their arms. They'll need elastic at the waist and hips too, at a bare minimum, and ideally also a bit just above knee level would be good. Otherwise, I'm not sure what they're going to look like but it won't be a caterpillar. I'm still not sure I put down enough; if it turns out we need significantly less fabric, I'm going to order more of the elastic than I said. That stuff is your friend when you're costuming.

And then there's the cotton tape. I have raved about the amazing usefulness of cotton tape before, and I expect I'll do it again. In this particular case, it's primarily for the playing cards. There are six of them in the original version of the script, but by the time I'd finished with it we were down to two; we've had to lose the Knave of Hearts and the three gardeners, so now it's just the King and Queen of Hearts. I am having conversations at the moment with a lady who is an artist, painting court cards being rather out of my remit. I know they're huge in Tenniel's illustrations, but we're having them rather smaller, since the actors have to move about easily without crumpling them; ours are just going to be A3 size, which is plenty. The fronts and backs of the cards will be fastened together at the shoulders with lengths of cotton tape, and then there'll be more of it to tie at the sides, so the cards will be like tabards. And if I don't find further uses for the remaining cotton tape in the course of this production, marinate me in Marlowe and throw me to the thespians.

So... elastic, cotton tape... the other thing that is your friend in this situation is eBay. From eBay I have scored a pair of matching crowns for the King and Queen (for just over £5!); the Mad Hatter's hat; one bunny ears and tail set (to be shared by the White Rabbit and the March Hare, who never appear on stage together - I'll just put them in different coloured base layers); cat ears for the Cheshire Cat; the Dormouse (actually he's a mouse, but nobody's going to quibble); a supersized teapot; a set of potion bottles with corks; and one pair of plush flamingoes. As you would.

Of course, it's anyone's guess what we're going to do with all this lot after the performance. Some of the props/costumes will certainly be useful for other productions, but... er...

...anyone need a pair of cuddly flamingoes?!