Alice in Wonderland – Silent Film with live improvised organ accompaniment

It’s a special delicacy: an early silent film masterpiece that every silent film fan shouldn’t miss.
The 1915 silent film adaptation of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, directed and written by W.W. Young and starring Viola Savoy as Alice. The fantastical story that is so intertwined with Oxford… down the rabbit-hole, into a magical wonderland… This version of the film also includes much of Carrol’s parodic poem You are old, Father William, costumes based on the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel, and the entire Mad Hatter tea party scene.
This evening will be prequelled by the very first ‘cinematic’ Alice – a once-lost version, pre-dating this silent film by 12 years. Eight minutes have been restored of the twelve minute ‘short’ by the British Film Institute. The film was produced and directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow out of their Hepworth Studios. A series of vignettes, displaying camera trickery pioneered just a few years earlier.
The very first of the Walt Disney 1923 Alice Comedies cartoons will serve as our amuse-bouche!

David Bednall is published by Choral Music Publishing, Oxford University Press, Boosey and Hawkes, Faber, and Novello. He is Choral Director of Clifton Cathedral, Musical Director of Bristol Bach Choir, Bristol Chamber Choir and Chew Valley Choral Society, alongside an extensive freelance career. He was previously Organ Scholar at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and then at Gloucester Cathedral, Assistant Organist at Wells Cathedral, Sub Organist at Bristol Cathedral and has improvised on live radio, and performed extensively in the UK and abroad, including at Notre-Dame de Paris – and even was stunt organist on Dr Who! His compositions are widely performed, recorded, and broadcast on BBC Radio and Classic FM. David’s St Mark Passion was commissioned for the BBC Singers in 2025.