Alice In Wonderland, V&A

Visitors to the V&A next year are invited to step through the looking glass and fall head first into one of the world's best-loved stories. This big-budget exhibition promises to be an 'immersive and theatrical show' that takes visitors on a 'mind-bending journey down the rabbit hole'.

Lewis Carroll's 1865 children's novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, follows the story of a young girl who follows a white rabbit into a weird alternate universe where she encounters a hodgepodge of quirky characters and anthropomorphic creatures. This fantastical tale captured the imagination of Victorian England, but thereafter it would also have an enduring cultural impact on fashion, cinema, art, and music for over 157 years through endless references, adaptations, and pastiches.

The exhibition will trace the rise of Alice as a global phenomenon through 350 exhibits including artworks, film clips, and sculptures. We will learn how the hallucinatory qualities of the plot impacted key cultural movements from the surrealists to the psychedelic musicians of the sixties. We will see Alice herself evolve through the centuries with John Tenniel's original drawings, Walt Disney's technicolour renderings, Salvador Dali's sketches, Ralph Steadman's illustrations, and most-recently, Tim Burton's feature film.

But the exhibition gets curioser and curioser – theatrical staging will bring lovable characters such as the Mad Hatter and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to life. The V&A has established itself as a master of blockbuster exhibitions throughout the years, and we've no doubt that this one will be a captivating and wondrous experience for both young and old alike.

Tickets due to go on sale soon. Watch this space...