When you’re attending a dinner-and-a-show based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, things are bound to get weird.
Alice, the latest dinner show to be presented by The Act, the theatrical venue at the Shangri-La, runs every Tuesday and Wednesday, starting at 9pm (guests are asked to arrive before 8.50pm) and wrapping up just around midnight. The enthralling acrobatic show, priced at Dh495, is accompanied by a three-course meal — Peruvian meets Japanese — and select beverages throughout the night.
Upon arrival, you’re given a playing card that determines your seating arrangement inside. After a few rounds of show-stealing appetisers — sushi, deep-fried corn-dogs, spicy mushroom skewers and tangy beef sliders — a waiter with a card that matches yours will grab your arm and rush you inside, right into the hazy, blue-tinged dinner room.
The waiters, of course, are all dressed as playing cards, too. They tell you strange, delightful things; they claim they sourced the night’s ingredients from the queen’s garden (goat cheese bruschetta followed by sea bass, smoky salad and risotto that tastes more like vegetable fried rice), and warn you that your table might wander away if you don’t keep an eye on it.
The show itself, which is divided into chapters, mostly between courses, is genuinely breathtaking. It starts with a live and haunting acoustic guitar performance that sets the eerie mood. But things take a quick turn for the psychedelic.
The Cheshire cat — who spends a lot of time crawling around the floor and startling diners when they least expect it — juggles rings with a mesmerising proficiency. A trippy caterpillar smokes hookah before shedding his costume and showing off some sultry moves. Two impossibly bendy contortionists perform aerial acrobatics and dangle precariously close above a display of mugs and plates stacked high on the dinner table below them. (Astonishingly, they manage to avoid toppling anything over or falling themselves.)
Of course, there’s also the stilt-walking rabbit who’s always in a rush, the big-haired Mad Hatter who looks straight out of an ’80s rock band, the naive Alice who tries to escape her sordid fate for most of the show, and the tiny but mighty Queen who sings live and terrifies patrons with her wide-eyed glare.
At one point, our tables do wander as we were warned they would. Three groups of people are moved on to the stage. The dining area turns into the performance arena, a nice twist that fits the bizarre feel of the show well.
The night ends on a sweet, if chaotic, note as a chorus of Rihanna’s Birthday Cake erupts, and pieces of carrot cake with vanilla sauce are distributed. All in all, you feel like you’re at an eccentric wedding where no one actually gets married, and you exit back into the real world feeling a little off-kilter but pretty pleased about it.
Check it out
Alice at The Act dinner package is Dh495. Reservations are required. Contact 04-3551116 or reservations@theactdubai.com.
