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Published: 2 April 2009

Cross-pollinating at the Mad Hatter’s Tea party – the Leftovers Creativity Collective

A glimpse through the rabbit hole at Wonderland

LINES from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland might well apply to the Leftovers Creativity Collective.
The talented Hampstead troupe – a burgeoning support group for young photographers, musicians, film-makers and performers – was founded three years ago to “creatively cross-pollinate and corroborate” through strength in numbers.
Although its name suggests their work may not be to everyone’s taste – either that or some recession-busting culinary forum – the LCC are through their popular festivals and art exhibitions fast-becoming something to be savoured.
“We are a charity helping young people be creative,” says Kayleigh Allenby.
The 21-year-old is directing an adaptation of the Alice fantasy story at Pentameters Theatre, Hampstead, this week.
“I think a lot of the time young people do not know what to do with their creative energy – that’s why we started the group.”
Leftovers formed after Kayleigh met Alice Old, the daughter of Leonie Scott Matthews, who has run Pentameters for 40 years. Alice, 20, plays the lead, clearly to the delight of her mother who once cast her in the role in an earlier Penta-meters production when she was six years old.
“I went to school in Birmingham – but I hated it,” says Kayleigh. “So I ran to London when I was 16. I lived with Alice and a few other girls in a flat above Starbucks in Hampstead.”
The show includes strobe lighting, film, theatre and live music courtesy of a young man known only as “R-E”.
Kayleigh says: “We wanted to use imagery to make the audience feel like they’ve just walked through the rabbit hole. We want it to feel like you are in a Wonderland.”
She has transformed the entrance of the theatre into a rabbit hole art installation brilliantly decorated with black and white stripes and melting clocks.
“Every time I had dreams as a child they involved arguments about whether things were black or white,” says Kayleigh, “and Alice had a fear of black and white stripes when she was a child.”
Curiouser and curiouser indeed.
TOM FOOT

* Leftovers Creativity Collective’s Alice is at Pentameters Theatre, 28 Heath Street, Hampstead, NW3, until April 4. £12/£10 conc.
020 7435 3648
www.pentameters.co.uk

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