Matilda will delight little maggots at month-long run
What a Dahling show!
Fans of Roald Dahl’s beloved novel about an indomitable five-year-old whose passion for books is only matched by her innate sense of righteousness will be more than familiar with Matilda. But for this interpretation, writer Dennis Kelly has sprinkled it with some real theatrical magic.
There are, of course, no songs in the book, but Tim Minchin has wonderfully captured Dahl’s child-like zest for life and love of burps with music and lyrics that blend seamlessly with the beloved characters.
It’s not often that a narrative features a little girl in the hero role, but Annalise Bradbury, who played Matilda on press night (the role is shared on tour by four actresses), did a great job of portraying this most spirited of characters as she outwits her parents and brings justice to Miss Honey’s cause. Granted, Matilda has telekineses on her side, but the message that you can control your own destiny and fight for what’s right is powerfully portrayed and little girls sat near mewerewhoopingfromtheedgeoftheir seats for this pint-sized protagonist as she rises up against the dreaded Trunchbull.
Not everyone thinks Matilda is so great, however. Sebastien Torkia and Rebecca Thornhill are brilliantly funny as Mr and Mrs Wormwood, who think their ingenious child is a little creep who should be ditching Dostoevsky and reaching for the remote like other kids. Bringing the fear was the ferocious Miss Trunchbull, and Craige Els was deliciously disgusting in the role of the hammer-throwing headmistress.
I loved to hate Miss Trunchbull when I first read Matilda as a child and Craige was excellent as one of Dahl’s most brilliantly-drawn characters. I almost felt five again as he started sniffing the air to find out who’d eaten his cake. And I was almost as excited as the little girls around me when she got the ultimate comeuppance: a newt in her knickers. Her subjects at Crunchem Hall are also brilliant.
The group scenes as they fly through the air on swings to When I Grow Up and stamp the floor in Revolting Children are a delight. Don’t believe me? Take your own little maggots along and see the magic for yourself.