Alice may be one of the most recognisable characters in children's literature, but she's the very devil to cast. All that troublesome business about going up and down like a telescope - most performers like to be stretched, but not that much.
This is before you even consider the moral angle - a girl who converses with opium-addled caterpillars, willingly partakes of dodgy mushrooms and drinks anything. You begin to wonder what sort of example it sets our children.
Still, there will be few children who come away less than enchanted by this Christmas treat. John Well's adaptation remains faithful to Lewis Carroll's book, Ruari Murchison and Stephen Snell's designs never stray far from the classic Tenniel illustrations, while Annalene Beechey, sweetly pragmatic in a powder blue pinafore dress, is most people's image of the ideal Alice.
Yet the West Yorkshire Playhouse has a fine tradition of Christmas shows that transform the source material into something new and unexpected - Jude Kelly's Singin' in the Rain washed away all memory of the screen version, and Matthew Warchus staged a thrillingly dark Peter Pan. Would it be mean to wonder if Ian Brown's production could be just a little less familiar?
There are also one or two moments of magic that seem imperfectly realised. How come the croquet players are issued with flamingos, yet the hedgehogs are left to the imagination? And are we really to believe that Alice has flooded the stage in tears simply because everyone starts to make swimming motions?
Still, it's joyously acted, and composer Carl Davis's Mozart-meets-Gilbert and Sullivan pastiche score is a delight. As for the party at the front who failed to silence their mobile phones: off with their heads.
· Until February 4. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
