It may be Christmas with the panto season in full swing, but if you’ve missed the big shows, then fear not, help is at hand, proving that there’s more to the festive period than ‘ho ho ho’. So here’s KATHERINE MACALISTER’S Alternative Christmas plan, to keep you going right through until the new year. And with delights such as Alice in Wonderland and Beauty And The Beast on offer, you could even forget about Christmas altogether.

It’s Alice as you’ve never seen her before – brave quirky and adventurous – largely thanks to Kate Scott who’s playing Lewis Carroll’s famous character until March.

And as it’s her first job fresh out of drama school, Kate is raring to go, come snow, blizzards or ice storms.

“Oxford Theatre Company is well known for never missing a show and I don’t want to let them down so we’ll get to every venue even if we have to carry our props above our heads through the snow,” she promises.

Kate is just 24, but is already relishing the lead role she won fresh out of the Royal Academy of Music where she studied musical theatre.

“We did a show yesterday and all the children wanted to have their picture taken with me because Alice is such an iconic role, and it was so lovely. But then this is such a special and magical production.

“To start with I was really worried because when we opened at The Pegasus the audience was really quiet. But I was told afterwards that’s a great sign because it meant the children were totally engaged.

“But then I play Alice as a detective trying to find out who stole the Queen of Hearts’ tarts so she’s a bit of a tomboy and more adventurous. She talks to the audience and is very inquisitive, rather than sweet little Alice being dragged around Wonderland.”

But Kate does admit the role requires a great deal of energy and concentration.

“We have good chemistry between the three actors and we need it because the other two have so many costume changes and play so many different characters, and I’m on stage all the time, so we have to have the energy,” she says. “But it’s not a problem for me because the best bit is the performing. I love it every time I get up there on stage.”

Alice in Wonderland tours extensively across Oxfordshire at 35 different community venues: December l Sun 19, Duns Tew Village Hall, 4pm. 01869 347106 l Mon 20, The Mill Arts Centre, 7pm. 01295 279002 l Tue 21, Alvescot Village Hall, 7pm. 01993 842312 l Wed 22, Chilton Village Hall, 7pm. 01235 834285 l Thu 23, Kingham Village Hall, 6pm. 01608 658089 January l Tue 4, Weston-on-the-Green Village Hall, 2pm. 01869 350432 l Wed 5, Risinghurst Community Centre, 6.30pm. 07887 893526 l Fri 7, Ramsden Memorial Hall, 7pm. 01993 868222 l Sat 8, Mollington Village Hall, 3.30pm and 7pm. 01295 750952 Sun 9, Leafield Village Hall 4pm 01993 878564 l Fri 14, Stanton Harcourt Memorial & Millennium Hall, 7.30pm. 01865 880540 l Sat 15, Wytham Village Hall, 7.30pm. 01865 243800 l Sun 16, Sunningwell Village Hall, 3pm. 01865 735910 l Tue 18, Carterton Community Centre, 6.30pm.

l Thu 20, West Oxford Primary School, 7.30pm. 01865 724968 l Fri 21, Uffington Memorial Hall, 7pm. 01367 820385 l Sat 22, Langford Community Centre, 7pm. 01869 246183 l Sun 23, Cassington Village Hall, 3.30pm. 01865 884458 February l Wed 2, Dorcester, 7pm. 01865 340759 l Fri 4, Great Milton Village Hall, 7.30pm. 01844 279474 l Sat 5, Tetsworth Village Hall, 7pm. 01844 281388 l Sun 6, Steeple Aston Village Hall, 5.30pm. 01869 340485/01869 340423 l Wed 9, Shutford Village Hall, 7pm. 01295 780793 /788311 l Fri 11, Little Milton Village Hall, 6pm. 01865 782453 l Sat 12, Charlbury Primary School, 4pm. 01608 810203 l Sun 13, Begbroke Village Hall, 2.30pm. 01865 841018 l Thu 17, The Barn, Blackbird Leys, 7pm. 01865 249444 l Fri 18, Witney Corn Exchange, 1.30pm and 6pm. 01865 249444 l Sat 19, Oxford Deaf & Hard of Hearing Centre, 2.30pm. 01865 249444 l Tom Stoppard uses documented events as a spring board for his soaring imagination in Travesties. He concocts a multi-layered knickerbocker glory of a comic confection involving literary and theatrical pastiche, limerick verse, vaudeville song, and heated debate on the role of the artist and the revolutionary – all conveyed with dazzling wit and wordplay.

Travesties runs until Saturday at the Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall, Norham Gardens, Oxford. Call the box office on 01865 305305 or see ticketsoxford.com l Is Beauty too snooty to feast with the beast who’s so ugly that when he looks in the mirror even his own reflection gets a shock? He’s cheesy, sneezy, wheezy, and he’s heading this way.

Blackeyed Theatre presents Beauty and The Beast until Sunday at Didcot Cornerstone Theatre with a new adaptation of Perrault’s classic fairy tale.

This show is full of fantastic original music, audience participation, fast-paced storytelling and all our favourite characters. Call the box office on 01235 515144.

lOxford Playhouse has created a magical show Bath Time, bursting with bubbles for children aged two to five, playing at the Burton Taylor Studio until Sunday.

Celebrate the fun of splashing about, singing down the plughole, shouting up the taps and making bubble beards. This is the perfect introduction to theatre for the very young. Call 01865 305305 or see oxfordplayhouse.com lThe premiere of an exciting, funny and dark production that revisits the terror and beauty of the Christmas story is to be performed at Pegasus by members of the Pegasus Adult Drama Group.

Based on the great cycle of medieval mystery plays, Nativity runs until Saturday.

It features comic sequences like Mak the Sheep-thief as well as one of the most tragic ever told, the Slaughter of the Innocents. Call the box office on 01865 812150.

lJanek Schaefer describes his Extended Play as a “bitter sweet tribute to the child survivors of conflict and war which continuously and positively celebrates hope, survival and new beginnings”.

Inspired by his Polish mother, who was a child survivor of the Second World War, a bunker in his back garden and the birth of his daughter, Schaefer created what became an award-winning sound installation. At its core he uses a Polish tango that originally told the story of a Polish/Ukraine conflict and was later used as code by the Polish underground in World War II. Schaefer takes this piece and teases out each instrument’s line. It plays from tomorrow until December 31 at The North Wall. Call the box office on 01865 319450.