AUDIENCES were spellbound as children transformed their school into a magical world and brought characters leaping from the page.

For three days students at Helsby High School lead packed audiences of parents, friends and family through a series of fantastical worlds where Alice falls not down a rabbit hole but into the imaginations of people reading books in her local library.

The school and The Chronicle have been inundated with emails and calls congratulating the teenagers on the professionalism of the ambitious play, which saw classrooms and open spaces in the school transformed into different scenes which the audience was led into as the story unfolded.

Mrs Cross, head of drama at the high school, said that the audience was ‘thrilled’ as they moved from space to space encountering a different theatrical genre in each space which all helped to tell the story of the troubled teenager, Alice.

“The success was due to the professionalism and talent of the wonderful cast,” said Mrs Cross, who said the school had received dozens of emails congratulating the actors.

The play, based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland tells of how a young Alice falls into a world where she finds herself locked into the imaginations of people reading a variety of important books in her local library.

Alice follows her sister through these books as she tries desperately to keep her safe, as instructed to by her mother. Through the content of the books and the characters she meets, Alice learns about her own life and a profound realisation is presented to her about the reasons for her poor parental relationship.