When the day becomes the night and the sky becomes the sea, when the clock strikes heavy and there's no time for tea, when in our darkest hour before my final rhyme, she will come back home to Wonderland and turn back the hands of time. Thus didn't spake Lewis Carroll, but it's nevertheless the centrepiece Hatter narration for this first glimpse of Alice Through The Looking Glass, James Bobin's sequel to Tim Burton's 2010 extravaganza.
Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Sheen, Toby Jones, Anne Hathaway and Alan Rickman are all returning, with the addition this time of Sacha Baron Cohen as the sinister Time. He won't abide being beaten, you know. Also on hand is Rhys Ifans as Zanik Hightopp, the Mad Hatter's father. No such character appears in the original books, but any priority along those lines is a distant memory at this point.
Alice Through The Looking Glass is produced, as was the first film, by Joe Roth, with a screenplay once again by Linda Wolverton (who also wrote Maleficent). It's out in the UK on May 27 next year.