On 31st January the BBC broadcast a programme to “celebrate” the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  With a girlishness reminiscent of Professor Umbridge, pink clad, blonde haired Martha Kearney began what seemed to be a delightful whimsical documentary, with charming forays into the actual sites around Oxford that Dodgson had known. Animations of his characters interacted with Martha and she reacted with childlike delight as an “Alice” but it all inevitably darkened as her kitten teeth and claws drew with unsubstantiated claims upon Carroll’s “true” character. As the programme progressed, it turned into something quite as monstrous as Umbridge’s “special” quills of punishment: the destruction, or the attempted destruction of an innocent man’s reputation. We are in this country innocent until proven guilty and “broadcast” is the operative word here, for without judge or jury, the programme put forth “objective analysis” for the prosecution.

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