To write in riddles is a curious thing. To be curiouser and curiouser is the road forward. Or, as the Cheshire Cat says, If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. That is a truth. Isn’t it? Yes, that’s right. After all, why is a raven like a writing desk?

I’m confused. But it didn’t get any less … confusifying … when I wrote a stage version of Alice in Wonderland, either.

Those characters were out of control. They had their own agenda and it did not matter the hatter what I thought. (Or wanted to write.) They all scurried off on their own and awaited my recording at the writing desk. (You know, that one like a raven.)

Immersing yourself in Wonderland can mean only one outcome: a befuddled mind that makes complete sense. Logic to illogic. Amusement to bemusement. (Or even C-musement?) Where big is small and real is unreal. How will it ever work? Can a Pantomime with a clear plot line emerge from the wonders of Wonderland?

Finding the reason inside Lewis Carroll’s story is like trying to understand why yes is no and no is yes. Why upside down is only upside down if you are right side up.

But what if you are not right side up? How would you know? Maybe we are all unreasonable beings and to be reasonable is the only form of reason that is allowed. I’ll think on.

Wonderland has endless meaning and you can get completely lost in the amount Carroll has hidden behind sentences. Ones that you are utterly convinced to be utter nonsense, yet unconsciously know are all perfectly true.

‘What do you mean by that?’ said the Caterpillar sternly. ‘Explain yourself.’

‘I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’

‘I don’t see,’ said the Caterpillar.

Alice’s continual changes in size, particularly at the beginning of the story, lead her to question whether she is still herself, believing that she has lost a part of who she is by such physical changes being experienced.

The literal and metaphorical clash repeatedly throughout the story, with explorations of what constitutes a person: how they seem or how they are. Alice feels like an outsider and is physically made to be one by appearing to always be the wrong size to what she wants. But she is often the right size to what she needs.

Everything being wrong permeates the story. Wonderland is full of bizarre truths that Alice discovers. There is a beauty to that. Is it better knowing everything you see to be true or nothing you see to be false? Wonderland is a conundrum of impossibility based on the belief that it is possible.

The fact that Lewis Carroll himself states that there is no answer to the ultimate Wonderland riddle – Why is a raven like a writing desk? – encapsulates the theme of Wonderland: be ready to believe everything you see, but don’t believe anything you see. There is no answer. Alice in Wonderland is wonderful nonsense. Isn’t it?

Which, ultimately, gave me the freedom to write a story in any which way to showcase Alice’s journey through Wonderland, following her journey of discovery. To this end, we plod on. After all, why isn’t a raven like a writing desk?