Oxford museum set for return of Alice's Day

An Oxford museum is set to hold a city-wide celebration dedicated to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland this weekend.

The Story Museum will hold Alice’s Day, an event featuring a range of activities based on the children’s story, on Saturday, July 6.

Visitors may meet a giant Alice in Wonderland and the Jabberwock, a monstrous creature from the sequel, Through the Looking Glass.

Presented by theatre-makers who specialise in large-scale puppetry and magic, Rag and Bone, the Jabberwock is a three-metre-high puppet that will roam the city.

The Jabberwock (Image: Rag and Bone)

Set on the backdrop of Oxford’s cityscape, Alice’s Day promises activities, including street theatre, interactive storytelling, talks and trails.

Alice in Wonderland was inspired by Charles Dodgson taking Alice Liddell and her sisters on a boat ride in Oxford.

After telling them stories of a girl sat by a riverbank who finds herself tumbling down a rabbit hole into a world called Wonderland he wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

He published it in 1865 under the pen name Lewis Carroll and it became one of the best-loved children’s books.

The Story Museum's Alice's Day (Image: Adrian Cassidy)

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History has arranged a meeting with the Dodo - a bird made famous in the story.

Families are welcome to join in with activities at the Treacle Well at Binsey, and take part in the Hatter's tea party at the Oxford Botanic Garden in partnership with Whatnot Theatre.

Aside from the festivities, visitors will receive half price entry to The Story Museum all day.

The Story Museum’s senior producer, Ameneh Enayat, said: "We are proud that Alice’s Day has become a firm fixture in Oxford’s annual cultural calendar, with both local people and visitors from around the world coming to celebrate it.

The Story Museum's Alice's Day (Image: Adrian Cassidy)

"With city-wide events and happenings, it’s a brilliant way to explore Oxford and get to know what inspired Lewis Carroll’s timeless tale."

Alice’s Day commemorates an important moment for children’s literature and for Oxford.

Alice became one of the most popular, most widely quoted and most widely translated children’s book ever written.

It marked the birth of modern children’s literature and saw Oxford became a world centre of children’s stories and inspirational home to many authors and illustrators.

The Story Museum's Alice's Day (Image: Adrian Cassidy)

The Story Museum will also be taking part in Oxfordshire's first sculpture trail, OxTrail, which launches on the same day.

The trail, which is raising money for Oxford hospice Sobell House, will showcase a mini-herd of painted oxen beside the museum's telephone box ‘Mouseum’ on Pembroke Street.

Additionally, an Alice-themed ox, painted by Oxfordshire-based artist Caroline Ritson, will be included in the main sculpture trail.