Matilda: The Musical

For someone so ordinarily repulsed by the human singing voice, I have a strange and paradoxical love for West End musicals. Well, to be fair, the thought of seeing many of them (and there are some real rank sounding ones around) makes me run a mile, but when I like a musical, I LOVE a musical. And as Matilda is one of my favourite books of all time, the chance that I would enjoy this one was pretty high.

I can't remember how old I was when I started reading Roald Dahl, what my first book by him was, or why I read his novels (I guess most kids did back then), but I loved him all through my childhood, and of all his characters, I like Matilda best. A couple of years ago I bought the Roald Dahl Complete Collection (you can get it here for £15.99, probably the best investment you'll ever make) and reading the stories as an adult is just as good as reading them as a kid. The wonder, fantasy, and imagination in Dahl is more brilliantly deployed than by any other author I can think of. And Matilda is just such a beautiful tale that reading it makes me remember all over again what a great place the world can be. A world filled with evil headmistresses, hateful parents, torture chambers filled with broken glass, and fratricide, yes, but somehow it's so easy to put all of this to one side and wallow in the wonder and joy of Matilda's wide-eyed view of things.

The musical is just the same. I actually first saw it when it premiered in Startford-Upon-Avon in 2010, and at the time I thought that it was good enough to go to London. The script by Aussie comedian Tim Minchin is superb: it fuses all the best bits of the novel with a bit of extra stuff that weaves perfectly into Dahl's story, and all the songs seem as if they could just as easily have been written by Dahl himself. The Trunchbull is brought brilliantly to life, played lispingly by a burly bloke (Bertie Carvel) and as much a fan of swinging girls round by their pigtails as she is in the novel. All of the actors are great and seemingly tailor-made for their parts, including Paul Kaye (Dennis Pennis) as the shady and stupid Mr Wormwood. It makes me so happy that a new generation of kids are being introduced to a little girl as great as Matilda, and I hope it's performed for years to come.