The ERLP energy recovery linac prototype at Daresbury Laboratory has been rebranded, and is now called ALICE (Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments). This paper gives an overview of the project and its status, outlines some of the challenges experienced during the commissioning of the photoinjector and superconducting accelerating systems, and presents our photoinjector gun commissioning results. An outline is given of the planned photon science program for ALICE, and its under-pinning role in the EMMA NS-FFAG 1 project.