While performances of the likes of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are traditional pantomimes that offer typical English festive entertainment, this year there’s a new kid in town who’s proving to be a huge hit. Crowds are flocking to see Matilda the Musical, a jazzed up version of the famous novel by Roald Dahl that is now playing to packed houses in the West End.
This new production from the Royal Shakespeare Company has been proclaimed by critics as the best British musical to hit the stage for years. Despite the fact that the majority of the cast is under the age of 16, this show is certainly not only for the kids.
Matilda is a very unusual girl; she is a bookworm with abusive parents and a headmistress who can only be described as a battleaxe. Whilst all this sounds mightily depressing, the little girls determination to avoid repression is wowing the audiences. For this adaptation, the RSC hired Dennis Kelley, the British playwright, to adapt the novel for the stage, and top Australian comedian Tim Minchin wrote the music and the lyrics.
Anyone who is familiar with the work of Minchin will already know that music plays an essential role in his comedy. There is, however, a huge difference between putting together a 60 minute comedy routine and a full length musical that is telling a story, but Minchin said that he was ready to take on this great challenge.
He said that he loved the idea of spending 2 years making a kids story into one that would make both kids and adults laugh and cry, and as he was writing the 17 song score he realised how much he had in common with Roald Dahl. He said that the author liked to muck about with words, did stupid rhymes and was a bit naughty, all of the things that he himself did in his comedy routines.
Matt Wolf, who is a writer for the International Herald Tribune, says of Minchin that his approach was exactly what London critics and audiences had been looking for. He also says that audiences were tiring of Andrew Lloyd Webber and revivals. Wolf says that hiring Minchin was totally out of the field as it was incorporating the world of Australian comedy into a show that was quintessentially English on so many levels.
Anybody who wants to adapt any of Dahl’s work for either stage or screen must first get permission from hi widow, who has set a strict criteria. Despite the success of Matilda, Amanda Conquy, the MD of the Dahl estate says that at first they were cautious about giving the go ahead.
She says that this is due to the fact that they had been very busy with films being developed over the past 10 years, and has always steered clear of musical because they had an incredible capacity for going badly wrong. She says, however, that they were glad they had taken the risk with this production, and that everyone was delighted with its success.
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