Operetta merges with musical theatre, playfulness bumps into existential angst, and a little fact meets lots of fiction in Boojum!, a sometimes bamboozling work blending nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark and the life of its author, Lewis Carroll.

Commissioned by the Adelaide Festival and created by Peter Wesley-Smith (lyrics) and his twin Martin (music), it was first performed in 1986 by State Opera South Australia. The company revived Boojum! in 2019 when Stuart Maunder was Artistic Director.

Now in that role at Victorian Opera, he introduces Melbourne to the little known Australian work, and this time it’s very much his baby. Maunder directs a humble but colourful new production in VO’s rehearsal and occasional, intimate performance space, Hemstritch Studio at Horti Hall.

David Hobson and cast in Victorian Opera’s Boojum! Photo © Scott Whinfield

Apart from veteran David Hobson in pivotal dual roles, Boojum! is a showcase for emerging artists, who are supported by the Victorian Opera Youth Chorus Ensemble. It’s an oddly low-key finale for the company’s 2025 season (apart from the forthcoming community Christmas sing-along in Ballarat).

Hobson’s extensive stage experience means he’s a natural as Boojum!’s showman Carroll. The tenor’s voice is past its prime, but his need to manage it arguably suits the contrasting role of Charles Dodgson, the eccentric cleric-academic behind the Carroll pseudonym who looks back somewhat sadly on his life in this show.

We also meet his muse, Alice, both as the girl who inspired his Wonderland stories, and the woman who reflects on her former friendship with Dodgson with mixed feelings. She touches on his penchant for taking photos of his young companions “undraped”, and casting them aside at puberty.

Rachael Joyce and David Hobson in Victorian Opera’s Boojum! Photo © Scott Whinfield

Rachael Joyce conveys the girlish sweetness of young Alice with her clear, ringing soprano and lively movements. Still, upright and with a dark edge to her strong soprano, Michaela Cadwgan brings gravitas to the older Alice. Their duet, about how Dodgson was Alice’s knight in shining armour, is a show highlight.

The book co-created by the Wesley-Smiths interweaves scenes of their imagined Alice and Dodgson, including his love of games and puzzles, with the fantastical search for the snark. The ‘real life’ pair unexpectedly join the poem’s strange group of fictional hunters, as well as Wonderland characters such as the white rabbit, and mystery additions including Al The American.

The Baker literally vanishes at the end of The Hunting of the Snark after seeing a creature called a boojum. In this version he dies before they set out and Dodgson is roped in to take his place, a switcheroo that foreshadows Boojum!’s existentially troubled second half.

Most of the hunter cast are given little opportunity to shine. Exceptions include Bailey Montgomerie, who interprets The Bellman with a lovely, light baritone, and tenor Joshua Morton-Galea who is confident, even sassy in three roles: Tweedledee, the Caterpillar and Carl The Russian (another mystery character). Hats off to Darcy Carroll for Tweedledum’s devilishly rapid “vice versa” tongue-twister.

Lachlan Bartlett, Chloe James, Syrah Torii, Bailey Montgomerie, Alessia Pintabona and Nicholas Matters in Boojum! Photo © Scott Whinfield

The busy, varied, even chaotic nature of the story is reflected in the score, which jumps from Sondheim-like songs to frolicking operetta rhythms, jazz to vaudeville and more besides. Martin Wesley-Smith includes clever musical games, running notes backwards and forwards, for example, and offering notes whose letter equivalents spell words like “cabbage”.

Conducted by Warwick Stengårds, this production’s little ensemble are hard-working and sure-footed in their interpretation of this varied and inventive musical mayhem. VO’s Head of Music Phoebe Briggs and Tom Griffiths are both on keyboards, Nic Synot plays double bass, and Peter Neville produces myriad, sometimes quirky percussive sounds.

Not much more than a big swathe of white fabric and a pipe-and-clamp stairway-meets-platform, Ishan Vivekanantham’s set is a functional, rudimentary location for the action and background for his colourful, carnivalesque costumes.

Alongside the ‘real’ characters’ garments suggesting Victorian-era respectability, there’s an eye-catching parade that brings vintage cabaret, circus and music halls to mind: flashes of sumptuous brocade; Elizabethan ruffs; a messy red wig entwined with a birdcage; a skirt made of ties; a striped top with exaggerated muscular padding. Like the story and music, it’s mad but appealing.

With its storytime subject, and the score and visual design’s playfulness, this two-hour (including interval) show seems to be for families. Boojum!’s troubling and philosophical elements make it unsuitable for children, however, who would probably have difficulty following the story in any case.

It’s a challenge for adults. Performers playing multiple characters, the mystery characters, the merging of life and art including a nonsense poem, and the time shifts and episodic nature of memories occasionally left me all at sea narratively speaking. Ultimately, however, I was carried along by Boojum!’s sense of fun, literary nostalgia, spirited, sometimes beautiful music, some fine singing and kooky costumes.

Boojum! is at Hemstritch Studio, Melbourne, until 23 November.