RSC announces world premiere of Roald Dahl's BFG

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has announced that it will be adapting Roald Dahl's children novel The BFG for the stage.

Working alongside Chichester Festival Theatre and the Roald Dahl Story Company, the new stage adaptation will open at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon for a 10-week run over the festive season in 2025.

The BFG tells the story of a young orphan named Sophie who befriends a giant and they embark on a mission together to stop other giants from eating children.

The show is the first RSC stage adaptation of a Roald Dahl novel since Matilda the Musical in 2010.

The production will be directed by RSC's co-artistic director Daniel Evans.

Speaking to BBC News, he said he was excited about the show and that it would appeal to both adults and children as "everyone has dreams and the story shows that if you believe hard enough, your dreams can come true".

Another important character in the book is the Queen who helps the BFG and Sophie save the children.

Based on Queen Elizabeth II, Evans said that as adults will have grown up with her as their monarch, there's something "even more poignant" about her character.

The BFG was one of Dahl's books to have been amended in 2023 in a bid to make them more suitable for modern audiences.

For example, the line: "You've gone white as a sheet!" has now been rewritten to "you've gone still as a statue!" and the friendly giant no longer wears a "black" cloak.

Across Dahl's novels, words including "fat" and "ugly" were removed after being reviewed by sensitivity readers, who check for potentially offensive content.

Speaking about the changes, Evans said "it's almost irrelevant in theatre".

"The text will be adapted by the playwright who will have a certain vision of how the characters should be presented and the story they want to tell. It might be that the language is changed entirely or even those scenes are cut."

The BFG will be adapted for the stage by playwright Tom Wells whose work includes Broken Biscuits, The Kitchen Sink and Me, As A Penguin.

According to YouGov, The BFG is the 10th most popular children and young adult fiction book and has sold over 21 million copies globally.

The book has previously been adapted for the 2016 fantasy adventure film which was directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and starred Sir Mark Rylance as the BFG and Ruby Barnhill as Sophie.

Matilda the musical has been seen by more than 12 million people in 100 cities across the world and has won 101 international awards. It was adapted into a film in October 2022.

The Roald Dahl story company has previously adapted The Magic Theatre, The Witches and The Enormous Crocodile for the stage.

Dahl, who died aged 74 in 1990, remains the number one most popular author of all-time in the UK and has sold more than 300 million books worldwide as of 2023. His works have been translated into 64 languages.

But antisemitic comments made throughout his life led to Dahl being a highly problematic figure.

In 2020, his family apologised, saying they recognised the "lasting and understandable hurt caused by Roald Dahl's antisemitic statements".