Talbot, Bryan - Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment

12:43pm Thursday 12th April 2007

FOR all the timelessness of Lewis Carroll's great creations, he and Alice still tend to be associated with a particular place and time - a sunny afternoon on the river near Oxford.

Bryan Talbot sets out a well-argued case that the north east has at least as much of a claim to have inspired that peerless fantasia - which might make this sound like a dry revisionist polemic, when it's nothing of the sort.

Not so much a graphic novel as a psychogeographical pageant in comic form, Alice In Sunderland uses an utterly beautiful mix of media to frame its tale in the style of a variety show, performed at the Sunderland Empire to one sceptical punter, with occasional interjections from the ghost of Sid James.

Sid died on stage there, you see - news apparently received with a shrug and "Don't worry, everybody dies in Sunderland". Mackems can be a tough crowd, one of the many things we learn about the area and its inhabitants as Talbot widens his focus, swooping swift-like into and around the history of the region, always finding links back to Carroll and Alice.

We learn how the myth of Carroll as the eternal innocent/repressed paedophile arose, and the truth behind it - and how Alice Liddell, his inspiration, was in later life romanced by royalty.

Meanwhile Sunderland is brought from the periphery of British history to its heart, national history refracted through a local lens.

This is no narrowly parochial paean, though - while Talbot is showing us how much the nation and the world owe Sunderland, it's implicit that you can find similar stories anywhere, if you look.

This astounding, unclassifiable performance is essential for fans of Alice and/or Sunderland, but anyone with a sense of wonder will love it just as much.