The Westminster Alice

Published five years before John Kendrick Bangs had the same idea with Alice in Blunderland, Saki, in his 1902 series of satirical articles, takes an Alice in Wonderland view of British politics, which Alice finds even stranger than events in Wonderland.

In all honesty, owing to its extremely topical nature this political satire hasn't worn well, which explains why it has virtually sunk without trace. To appreciate it at all, it's really rather necessary to understand the topical references. I am no historian, least of all a political historian, but I have researched it as well as I can, and made some notes in an attempt to put the events and characters into their political context for the listener. My notes may be found on the Internet Archive in audio form or in text form.

I hope that this may still appeal to the political sceptic of today. With some basic understanding of the situation, I found the satire bitingly keen at points, and was left with the feeling that some aspects of British politics have changed little in more than a century, although current political satire sadly lacks Saki's wit. As the Red Queen says: "I don't know what business you have here, if you don't belong to the Cabinet; of course... there are so many of them, and they're mostly so unimportant that one can't be expected to remember all their faces." (Introduction by Ruth Golding) (0 hr 55 min)

Chapters

00 Introduction	1:26	Read by Ruth Golding
01 Alice in Downing Street	6:53	Read by Ruth Golding
02 Alice in Pall Mall	6:31	Read by Ruth Golding
03 Alice at Lambeth	4:20	Read by Ruth Golding
04 Alice and the Liberal Party	5:43	Read by Ruth Golding
05 Alice Anywhere BUT in Downing Street	5:13	Read by Ruth Golding
06 Alice in Difficulties	3:24	Read by Ruth Golding
07 Alice at St. Stephen's	3:50	Read by Ruth Golding
08 Alice Lunches at Westminster	2:56	Read by Ruth Golding
09 Alice in a Fog	4:33	Read by Ruth Golding
10 Alice Has Tea at the Hotel Cecil	5:21	Read by Ruth Golding
11 Alice Goes to Chesterfield, The Aged Man, Spades in Wonderland	5:13	Read by Ruth Golding

Reviews

This was too good

(5 stars)

Misaki Tyler

I would read more and more about this, but it's so sad to see that almost nothing changed