Lively musical sweet, too

One of Roald Dahl’s most dreamlike — and least logical — stories, “James and the Giant Peach” floats, at times literally, from one unlikely scene to the next.

The musical, produced with pizazz by Columbus Children’s Theatre, grounds what can be an excessive fantasy in the alternately sweet and rambunctious songs of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and a playful book by Timothy Allen McDonald.

The story is both anchored and stitched together by a Willy Wonka-like emcee ( played with zest and a sly edge by Justin King) who alternately interferes with the plot and comments on it from outside.

The tale focuses on orphaned young Brit James ( earnestly selfpossessed fifth- grader Carson Kittaka, with an impressive voice ), who

is forced to live with his villainous aunts Spiker and Sponge (Kelsey Hopkins and Jenna Lee Shively, making a fine comedy team).

When James bungles a magic spell, the result is a peach the size of a house, as well as a quintet of giant insects. Inside the peach, he and his new friends roll down a hill toward the Atlantic Ocean and are swept away to New York City.

Director Ryan Scarlata keeps the energy level high, aided by precise and entertaining choreography by Dionysia Williams.

If younger viewers have trouble following the sometimes-episodic story, and if James — the only child in the production — occasionally seems lost in the shuffle, nicely orchestrated slapstick moments and big production pieces seemed for the most part to hold viewers’ attention Thursday night during the opening performance.

So did Michael Brewer’s impressive set, featuring a climbable peach so large it barely fit on the Lincoln Theatre stage, as well as a surreal projected backdrop that allowed the peach to grow larger and larger.

Dahl purists might be offended that this version domesticates his anarchic side. n the other hand, it didn’t shy from giving the villains their just, peach-flavored desserts.