Theatre
The BFG, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper
Four stars
Be careful not to quaff too many flagons of frobscottle before going to see the Royal Lyceum Company's festive take on Roald Dahl's over-sized yarn about a kindly but flatulent giant. If you do indulge in the make-believe beverage, Andrew Panton's production of David Wood's stage version might well end up with so much whizzpopping, as Dahl would have it, that it could resemble an exercise in odorama, not to mention adding assorted off-kilter pumps and parps to Claire McKenzie's already energetic live soundtrack.
Wood opens up Dahl's pages by way of a magician's birthday party no-show, which inspires young Sophie to put herself centre-stage as she acts out her favourite present along with her pals, while also giving her mum and dad the starring roles. On a life-size wooden doll's house flanked by little fluffy clouds designed by Becky Minto, Robyn Milne's Sophie transports her puppet self into the clutches of The BFG, played by Lewis Howden as a gentle sort, with a penchant for Stanley Unwinesque semantics. The other giants aren't quite so laid-back, alas, and more resemble wild animals as they embark on a child-snatching spree that only the full might of the Queen of England and all her armed forces can contain.
There are times when Dahl's story more resembles something out of Viz comic than a well-respected children's classic. This is something that makes proceedings infinitely more appealing to adolescents of all ages, helped along nicely in a bright, modern take on the show by Jamie MacDonald's quasi-disaster movie animation and some neat puppet work that truly shows the things that dreams are made of.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article