Living in Sligo, you'd have to be a philistine eejit to miss out on the local theatre company, the Blue Raincoats, and their new adaptation of the second of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, Through the Looking Glass, in their freshly renovated Factory space (from Tuesday, for two weeks - bookings on 071- 70431).
Operating from the splendid geographical isolation of Sligo until recently - this summer, both Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will run in tandem at the Peacock - the Raincoats make an extraordinary brand of physical theatre: dream-like shoals of running, dancing, gesturing movement - conjuring images out of thin air.
Characters flow with a stream of inner impulses, their actions constantly interrupted, like psychiatric patients switching between trains of thought. David Heap, again shouldering the role of love-smitten rector, Charles Dodgson, will no doubt intone the Jabberwock. Fiona McGeown - who in Adventures, played Alice as a pompous, imperious little Madam - now navigates Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the timeless tumbles of the White Knight, the Red King and Queen, not to mention the Lion and the Unicorn. According to McGeown, "this time, it's more Alice as a woman, an old woman, looking back at her memory of her dream . . ." Alice has both suffered and benefited from countless adaptations, but I imagine the Blue Raincoats will make matters curiouser and curiouser.