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The questions are about the enduring magic and appeal of Dahl, the major challenges I faced in translating THE BFG to the stage, the key ingredients needed to keep children entertained and my favourite children's story (a question I rather chickened out of ...).
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What is the enduring magic and appeal of Roald Dahl? |
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Dahl's stories are still as popular as ever. Today's adults, who grew up with them, remember them with huge affection. And today's children enjoy their combination of fantasy and reality just as much. He creates colourful characters - think of the insects in JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, and wonderfully nasty baddies - think of the Giants in THE BFG or the Grand High Witch in THE WITCHES.
Like many classic stories, the fantasy often stems from reality. In THE BFG, Sophie is an unloved child living in an orphanage. Her very real situation is transformed when she is snatched through the window by the Big Friendly Giant. She, like many other Dahl child characters, ends up, against all the odds, triumphing against injustice.
The Boy in THE WITCHES helps save all the children of the world. Sophie's passionate action stops the children of England being eaten by Giants. These are huge matters of life and death. And by using a child protagonist, Dahl empowers children to believe in themselves and to question unfairness and cruelty.
So young readers identify with the young heroes and heroines, and revel in the often anarchic representations of eccentric and unpleasant grown-ups. Dahl is also remarkably adept at taking traditional ingredients of fairy tales and recycling them to give his work a contemporary, yet timeless, feel. For example, many fairy tales use kings and queens. Dahl's Queen in THE BFG happens to be the Queen of England. He never actually refers to her as Queen Elizabeth II, but the reader immediately imagines our present Queen, particularly when Buckingham Palace becomes a location for the story.
And, just as giants and witches abound in traditional stories, Dahl brings them right up to date. His Giants threaten today's children, as do his witches in THE WITCHES. Not for him the pointed hat and broomstick. His witches are altogether more dangerous, because they can easily be mistaken for ordinary women.
Dahl's stories are always on the side of fairness and justice, but he never overtly preaches or underlines a moral. He is not afraid to bring out the darker aspects of a story and he cleverly couples this with wonderful humour. He always said that one of his main aims was to make children laugh. |
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What were the major challenges you faced in translating the BFG to the stage? |
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I approached THE BFG with trepidation. The book had rapidly become a children's classic. It is a splendid mix of the scary and the subversively funny, involving children-eating giants, whizzpoppers - perhaps the first time that breaking wind had appeared in a children's book - child abduction and the introduction of the Queen of England as a character.
Fantasy ideas like blowing happy dreams into children's bedrooms jostle with a contemporary world of helicopters on a mission to catch the giants. Particularly effective is the growing warmth of the main through-relationship, a kind of non-sexual love story between Sophie, a feisty orphan, and the Big Friendly Giant.
These two social misfits struggle against evil and eventually save the world's children. The story had all the makings of an exciting and inspiring play, but there were glaring problems about staging it. The main problem was one of scale.
Would the audience expect to see a little girl and a twenty-two feet high giant? Puppetry was a possibility, but it felt wrong to have an actress play Sophie alongside a huge puppet BFG, or to have an actor play the BFG alongside a small puppet Sophie.
Eventually, the solution came when I realised that the book is divided into two halves. The first half concerns one human being (Sophie) in a world of giants. The second half involves one giant (the BFG) in a world of human beings.
So, in the first half I used a puppet Sophie (operated by the actress Sophie) with human beings playing giants. In the second half I used a huge puppet BFG (operated by the actor BFG) with human beings playing human beings.
This seems to have worked well. I also introduced a play-within-a-play device, which meant that the story could be acted out by a group of children at a birthday party. It is true that the notion of 'let's do the play right here' risked coming over as a cliché, but the possibilities for inventiveness and apparent improvisation seemed to me to be ample compensation. Hopefully it works!
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What are the key ingredients you need to keep children entertained - and not fidgeting - in the theatre? |
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 Much of my book THEATRE FOR CHILDREN: GUIDE TO WRITING, ADAPTING, DIRECTING AND ACTING (Faber) is devoted to the belief that the demands of children's theatre are considerably different from those of adult theatre.
Children don't automatically have theatre manners. If a play doesn't interest them, or bores them, they won't sit politely and clap at the end as adults do. They will shuffle in their seats, talk to their friends and, even if they don't really want to, insist on being taken to the loo!
Our job is to accept this challenge, and produce work that rivets children to their seats, interests and inspires them, and makes them unable to take their eyes and ears away from what is happening on stage. Quite apart from a strong story, we have to find ways of telling the story that emotionally involve and trigger the imaginations of our audience.
This means that action is as important as dialogue. It is unlikely that children would sit quietly through a play consisting of two characters sitting down having a conversation. They need to be doing something as well as talking about it. It is also, for me, important to employ as much theatricality as possible in the production.
The 'magic' of theatre still works on the most sophisticated children. Lighting, sound effects, scenery, costume, illusion, puppetry, mime and music all have a part to play.
When I write a play for children I am looking for what I call 'suddenlies'. These are the theatrical equivalent of sudden page-turning moments in a book, things to stimulate, things to encourage the audience's attention not to wander. On each page I try to craft several suddenlies.
These may be a sudden lighting change, a sound effect like thunder, a new character coming in, a musical sting, an unexpected twist of plot, a sudden new thought etc. etc. For me there is nothing more exciting than being in a theatre watching a house full of children reacting positively to my work. It really is a big challenge, and it never gets any easier. But when it works, it creates an infectious buzz.
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What's your favourite children's story - and why? |
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Very difficult to answer this - I have been fortunate enough to adapt several wonderful stories, including six Dahl titles, Philippa Pearce's wonderful, haunting TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN, and, for younger children, Judith Kerr's classic picture book, THE TIGER WHO CAME TO TEA.
I suppose what grabs me is a certain magical quality that grips the imagination. Tom is able to go back in time to meet a Victorian girl called Hatty. Young Sophie and her mother take it in their stride when the doorbell rings and a tiger asks to come to tea.
Both stories, on the surface, are implausibly impossible. But their authors brilliantly make us believe not only that the story could happen, but that it really did happen.
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My adaptation of THE WITCHES by Roald Dahl opened at Birmingham Rep. on December 1st 2004. I was asked to answer some questions for the Rep's OFFSTAGE Magazine. Here are the questions and my answers!
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What inspired you to write plays for children? |
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In my teens I performed magic at children's parties. I suppose that taught me something about entertaining children en masse. When I was at university, I went to a matinee of a big commercial pantomime, full of children. I noticed that there was little storyline, and that the glorified variety show on view didn't really appeal to children.
The principal comedian cracked an off-colour joke, and when it got an appreciative cackle from some ladies near the front, came down to the footlights and said, "Let's get the kids out of here, then we can get started!"
In the darkened auditorium I felt myself blushing! My hackles really did start to rise! How dare he show such disrespect to his audience. It led me to think about how little was available directly aimed at a young audience. This was the mid-sixties. Within a couple of years I was in rep at the Swan Theatre, Worcester, working as an actor and director. I was asked to organise Saturday morning children's theatre, and then John Hole, the artistic director, asked me to write a children's Christmas play.
This turned out to be a not-very-good adaptation of Hans Andersen's THE TINDERBOX. But it was good enough for John to ask me to write more! Since then I have written about sixty more plays for children, and still find it a huge challenge. |
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Did you go to the theatre as a child, if so what were your earliest / fondest memories? |
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The first professional show I ever saw was PETER PAN in London, which I absolutely loved. I suppose I must have been about six.
 The following year my parents offered me a choice of several shows, but I insisted on seeing PETER PAN again! I think most children are somewhat conservative. They like repetition, particularly when it involves something they liked a lot! For some reason, the image that has stayed with me is Smee working away at his sewing machine!
When I was about eight I saw an amateur production of CINDERELLA, with the local vicar playing one of the Ugly Sisters! I always remember the extravagant use of huge props, like an enormous comb and pair of scissors.
 Indeed the use of scale has been a predominant feature of my plays. THE PLOTTERS OF CABBAGE PATCH CORNER is set in a garden, with insect characters and a vast cabbage and oversized flower pot!
THE SELFISH SHELLFISH takes place in a rock pool, in which shellfish characters live amongst human litter, including a baked bean tin and a flip-flop. And in THE WITCHES, when Boy and Bruno are turned into mice, the scale increases so we see things from a mouse's viewpoint.. |
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How easy or hard is it to adapt books for the stage? |
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I see adaptation as a craft. It is not simply a case of plucking the dialogue from the book and sticking it on the stage! The structure of a play is very different from the structure of a book.
I try to be faithful to the book and its author, while sometimes changing the running order of events, omitting scenes or characters, or even inventing new ones.
The story has to be made to work in theatrical terms. Action as well as dialogue is important. Getting from one scene to another must be smooth. The whole process must be logical, with lots of excitement, use of theatrical tricks like sound, lighting, music and, in the case of THE WITCHES, stage illusion. I particularly like using magic, because it takes me back to my conjuring roots! |
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Some plays can patronise children – how do you get round this? |
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By telling the story honestly and excitingly, and never underestimating children's ability to understand. Most children, if the story grabs them, pay far more attention to what is going on than adults.
The amount of detail that children remember is admirable. Just look at the drawings and paintings they often send in. Quite honestly, I write the play for myself. I don't necessarily think about the children in the audience. Having said that, I think I do have some sort of antenna which tells me how children are likely to react to things.
Sometimes - though not in THE WITCHES- I use audience participation, and actually give the audience lines in the printed script! Some people think this is very arrogant behaviour! But I believe it is my job to know how the audience will react to certain situations.
The director and the actors can play their part too. They should play the story "for real", take it seriously, and not think that children only enjoy hearing silly voices and seeing people fall over! There is a strange misconception sometimes that everything in a children's play has to be unnaturally jolly! |
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What do you think is the secret to keeping children entertained and on the edge of their seats? |
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"Lots of suddenlies".
This has become my credo ever since a Canadian children's book publisher told me the story of her eight year old daughter, who greatly enjoyed a book, and on being asked why, simply answered ....."lots of suddenlies".
Theatre suddenlies include new characters coming on, new ideas being introduced, a music cue, a sound effect, a lighting change, a magical happening etc. etc.
When I am writing I actually count the number of suddenlies on each page! The aim is to make it absolutely impossible for the audience to want to take their eyes off the stage, for fear of missing something! |
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How do you keep in the scary bits without terrifying the children? |
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Very few children get scared in the theatre, unless they are younger than the recommended attendance age. It is human nature to enjoy being scared a little, even a lot! The great thing about theatre is that you can be scared within a safe environment.
Most fairytales are pretty frightening. Look at RED RIDING HOOD! Far better for children to learn that the world isn't always a happy place by reading a story or watching a play, rather than experiencing genuinely scary events in real life.
Roald Dahl was an extremely moral writer. His child heroes and heroines always defeat the representatives of evil or unfairness. But the audience, in order to experience the cathartic joy of triumph over villainy, need to be shown the nasty things that need punishing! |
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Do you think every child should be taken to the theatre by their school every year as part of the curriculum? |
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I most certainly do.
Ideally it should be free!
I believe that there are certain things that should be a child's right - free library books, learning to swim, things like that. And going to the theatre is one of them.
The arts are as important as eating and drinking, in my opinion.
The triggering of the imagination leads to creativity, which every child needs. I believe we all have an imagination muscle that will not develop unless it is exercised. The theatre is a wonderful place for this to happen. The school curriculum needs radical rethinking, to include the arts - music, drama, painting in particular.
A teacher at an infant school, explaining to me how even three-year olds were working towards the dreaded tests, said "We don't have time for fun anymore". This struck me as a very sad reflection on our education system. |
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Any anecdotes from previous productions of The Witches? |
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As the director of the original production of THE WITCHES, I remember the complicated planning pre-production stage with particular pleasure, even though there were so many problems to overcome!
Working with magic and puppetry was really exciting. How on earth were we going to make fifteen witches disappear? And how would Boy and Bruno turn into mice? The recruitment of local amateur actresses to play witches in every city we played was unforgettable, too. Several auditionees were so keen, they actually had their heads shaved, having read in the book that Dahl's witches don't have hair!Several witches took the trouble to write to me to tell me we had given them the best week of their lives.
Another really exciting thing for me was taking the production into the West End, not least because we played at the Duke of York's Theatre, where, in 1904, PETER PAN first played! What was a real surprise was to find that the stage of the Duke of York's is really quite small. How on earth they fitted on all the varied scenes of PETER PAN is still a mystery to me. |
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There’s lots of magic in the show – what was the most difficult part of The Witches to adapt for the stage? |
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I suppose it has to be near the end of the book/play, when lots of witches disappear and the Grand High Witch is defeated. It's a wonderfully theatrical idea on the printed page. Making it happen convincingly on stage was a real challenge. |
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How easy or difficult was it to capture the essence of Roald Dahl’s characters? |
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The characters don't present huge problems, because Dahl writes splendidly theatrical characters, particularly baddies! Everything in THE WITCHES has a heightened reality, which leads to a very plausible fantasy situation. There is broad humour in the depiction of Bruno and his somewhat vulgar parents. But this is balanced by the very warm and affecting relationship between Boy and his Grandmother.
The strength of their love, and the way they become a troubleshooting double act provides the main anchor of the story. Dahl also writes very colourful dialogue, some of which comes straight off the page and into the play! |
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Jonathan Church is going to have the task of recruiting 15 local amateur actresses to play witches. What do they have to do and how would you persuade somebody to take part? |
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They have to attend the annual English Conference of Witches, and respond with great awe and excitement to the exhortations of the Grand High Witch. They work very much as an ensemble, shouting out impassioned responses and intoning the sinister "Down with children, do them in" rhyme. Any local actresses who would like the chance to be really evil need look no further! |
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Have you worked with Jonathan Church before? |
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No, but I have admired his work in Birmingham and elsewhere. And I was flattered to learn that one of his early theatre-going experiences was to see my play THE PLOTTERS OF CABBAGE PATCH CORNER. This, he says, made him want to work in the theatre! |
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Did you ever meet, Roald Dahl? Did he ever see any of your stage adaptations? |
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Sadly, no.
In 1990 I was in a hotel room in Hastings, writing my adaptation of THE BFG. One of the games I play with myself, in order to keep me tethered to the writing desk, is to ration the amount of television I watch! When I got to the helicopter scene, quite near the end of the play, it was about six fifteen in the evening, and I allowed myself the treat of watching some of the early evening news. At the very moment I turned on the television, the newsreader announced that Roald Dahl had died earlier that day....a very spooky moment, I can assure you!
I sat in the darkening hotel room for a couple of hours thinking about him, and hoping that he would like the way that I was adapting his book! But sadly he was never able to see the production. However, his widow, Felicity, known as Liccy, came to see it and said extremely encouraging things about it.
Since then I have been privileged to adapt not only THE WITCHES, but also THE TWITS, FANTASTIC MR FOX, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH and DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. The more I adapt Dahl the more I admire his skill as a story teller. He knew all about "lots of suddenlies"! |
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You were awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours this year and numerous productions of your stage adaptations are been presented in theatres across the UK all year round. What would you like to achieve next? |
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I just want to continue writing and directing plays for children. Some practitioners see working in children's theatre as simply a stepping-stone towards working in adult theatre. I have never seen it that way. I have no particular desire to write for adults. The challenge of writing for children is as great as it ever was, and as rewarding when I get it right! I would also like to write more children's books. And I wouldn't mind doing a bit of acting again! . |
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