Fizzbanging perfect puppetry!

Hilary Hopker
1 day ago
2 min read

John Leader and puppeteers. Photo by Marc Brenner.

Roald Dahl’s The BFG at the RSC until 7 February 2026. Adapted by Tom Wells with additional material by Jenny Worton. Directed by Daniel Evans.

Review by Hilary Hopker

At some point as a child or a parent, you will have read Roald Dahl’s magical tale of a Big Friendly Giant, who spends his time catching dreams. Looking at last night’s audience the very many adults and children were driven to come see the performance by the love of this classic Dahl story.

The play opens with a minature orphanage, home to our main character, eight-year-old Sophie and her best friend Kimberley. There is theatre magic right from the start, with the model providing the set for the action.

Sophie played brilliantly my Ellemie Shivers is bold, bossy and confident throughout. Of course, the whole audience is waiting to see the giant, wondering how the scale difference will be handled.

John Leader, Sonya Cullingford, Fred Davis, Corey Mitchell, Parkey Abeyratne. Photo by Marc Brenner.

The answer is a complete surprise. There’s the predictable large-scale puppetry, with the giant played by a puppet whose face is so real you can see his eyes sparkling. Then the whole thing flips around with BFG actor John Leader onstage and Sophie becoming the puppet. The effect is such that the humanity of the characters shines through whether they be played by actor or puppet, with the gestures and voices remaining the same. The switches are done cleverly with one scale receding as the next advances, so that the transitions never jar.

Parts of the play feel super modern for today’s audience. The BFG is a vegan, eating only the ‘disgusterous snozzcumbers’ who’s being bullied for being different, Sophie is a strong independent woman aged 8, and the Queen decides to do something real and puts in a shift with the military.

Theatre magic is sprinkled throughout. Dreams whizz around the theatre before being caught in jars, the scale of the characters constantly changes and my son remarked how believable every scene is despite the minimal set.

The BFG played by John Leader. Photo by Marc Brenner.

For my 14-year-old son the stand-out performance of the night was the BFG. Played by John Leader, he takes the whole audience with him in his performance as the friendly giant bullied by the bigger giants who is happily led by Sophie in a grand plan to make the world safer for ‘human beans’.

My favourites though were the ‘Rozencrantz and Guildernstern’ comic duo, Captain Smith, played by Philip Labey and Captain Frith played by Luke Sumner. They lift the play in all the right places with much needed laughter in between the threats of nightmares and cannibalism.