Revisionists should keep their hands off Dahl’s books, says Wes Anderson

Artists’ work should never be modified to appease modern audiences, says director of new adaptation

WES ANDERSON has said Roald Dahl’s children’s books should not be edited amid a row over revisions of his work.

The director, whose adaptation of Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar was due to premiere at the Venice Film Festival yesterday, said that artists’ work should never be modified once finished, even if the creator wants to change it.

In February, The Daily Telegraph revealed that Puffin had made hundreds of changes to Dahl’s original texts to appease a modern audience.

The ensuing row forced the publisher to announce it would produce uncensored versions of his stories and keep the classic texts in print.

Speaking in Venice, where he was asked his opinion on the row, Anderson said: “I’m probably the worst person to ask about this because if you ask me if Renoir should be allowed to touch up one of his pictures, I would say ‘no’. It’s done. And certainly, no one who is not an author should be modifying somebody’s book. He’s dead.”

Edits to Dahl’s original books included swapping the Cloud-men of James and the Giant Peach for Cloud-people and changing the son of Fantastic Mr Fox – Anderson’s first Dahl adaptation – to a daughter.

References to physical appearance were changed, with the words “fat” and “titchy” no longer deemed appropriate to describe Augustus Gloop and the Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“Black” and “white” were also removed so that characters did not turn “white with fear”. The Big Friendly Giant in The BFG no longer wears a black coat as a result.

Passages not written by Dahl were added by Puffin. In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches were bald beneath their wigs ended with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”

The Queen appeared to criticise the changes, urging authors to resist curbs on “freedom of expression”.

“Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination,” she said at a Clarence House reception to mark the second anniversary of her online book club in February. “Enough said,” she added, with a smile.

Other publishers and authors joined the backlash. Joris van de Leur, Dahl’s Dutch publisher, said of his writing: “If a person is fat, it represents gluttony and excess. Children understand what such literary hyperbole is. They really don’t think all fat kids are greedy.”

Salman Rushdie branded the move “absurd censorship”, saying that Puffin and the Dahl estate should be ashamed. Michael Morpurgo, author of War

Horse, said it was important children had a sense of time when books were written. “You cannot go on rewriting them to suit modern tastes,” he added.

Martin McDonagh, a filmmaker and playwright, suggested he could use his will to block any such posthumous edits to his work, telling the BBC that he had to “make sure in my will, the wording of that is very, very specific too”.

Anderson’s latest film is based on the 1977 short story, which follows the wealthy Henry Sugar as he learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes before embarking on a journey to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling.

The 40-minute film features a crop of stars including Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role alongside Dev Patel, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade and Rupert Friend.

It is one of many Dahl stories being produced by Netflix after the company bought the author’s estate in 2021 for £500million, and will be released on the streaming platform on Sept 27.

Anderson confirmed that he would produce three more short films based on the author’s stories.

“There’s another one that’s in the Henry Sugar collection that’s called The

Swan, we’ve done that with Rupert Friend,” he said.

“We did a very old one called Poison, which is one I always loved.

“And then we’ve also done a very strange one called Ratcatcher, which is from a book called Claud’s Dog, a kind of obscure Dahl book set in the eastern part of England.

“It’s a really rural one, it’s a peculiar story. And they’re all strange.”

Anderson also suggested that his idiosyncratic film style was not something he consciously considered.

“I know there are so many things that link what I’m drawn to, and I guess you can see it’s me,” he said.

“But I hope I’m always changing and finding new ideas and ways to tell a story. I guess it’s all going to be a bit limited by being filtered by my own brain.”

‘Certainly, no one who is not an author should be modifying somebody’s book – he’s dead’