FringeReview UK 2026
The BFG
Chichester Festival Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company
Genre: Adaptation, Children's Theatre, Comedy, Contemporary, Drama, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Puppetry, Theatre
Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Roald Dahl’s The BFG, a joint production of the RSC and Chichester Festival adapted by Tom Wells and directed by Daniel Evans, now arrives at Chichester Festival Theatre till April 11. This wintry pre-spring season needs warming with a blaze and five stars might just about do it.
Evans and his team have transported the magic so completely it’s taken up residence. Both outstanding and a delight.
Review
Be careful of what you won’t dream. It’ll come for you. Luckily it’s friendly. Roald Dahl’s The BFG, a joint production of the RSC and Chichester Festival adapted by Tom Wells and directed by Daniel Evans, now arrives at Chichester Festival Theatre till April 11. This wintry pre-spring season needs warming with a blaze and five stars might just about do it.
It’s a whizz-popping start too to Chichester’s new season, beginning a full month earlier than usual, and mounting the kind of show you might expect at Christmas. Artistic director Justin Audibert’s instincts prove sound. Not only is it as glorious as previous reviews tell us, the seats are packed with rapt believers.
Vicki Mortimer’s set is an ideal fit for the Festival’s thrust stage which mirrors the RSC’s perfectly: which makes sense as Chichester’s inspired it. So there’s minimal apparent changes and the space glows with diaphanous backdrop curtains, Kinnetia Isidore’s costumes (on fantastical form at the palace), and Chris Fisher’s illusions behind. The swift uncluttered use of props clears not just for narrative pace but the puppetry design and direction of Toby Olié, with co-designers Daisy Beattie and Seb Mayer.
The BFG himself of course is only a “runt” according to the larger giants; all managed by a host of puppeteers Particularly striking is choreographer and movement director Ira Mandela Siobhan’s seamless way giant puppets and humans shift for more humans (the giants) and miniature puppets. It’s as skilful as the magnificent puppetry, with an emphasis on Suffolk pink through a sickly mint-ish green and of course grey. With additional work by dramaturg Jenny Worton there’s a polish and poise that ensures (unlike the dreams) nothing of the two hours five blinks or nods.
Oleta Haffner’s winning score directed by Math Roberts strikes a balance between say the grown-up child’s operas of Oliver Knussen and a soft-grained wonder. It’s also scaled to arrive just when needed, and is never intrusive (Carolyn Downing’s sound is a model some shows could profit from).
A glum orphanage at lights-out. Sophie (Martha Bailey Vine on this occasion) doesn’t believe best friend Kimberley (a sparkling, downright Uma Patel also on this occasion). Bailey Vine makes an ardent, curious and wholly believable Sophie: one who can quite as easily repine and exult within the character’s imaginary. Sophie, unlike Matilda say, is low on belief. Life’s not been easy. But then as Kimberley sleeps the BFG (John Leader) arrives, huge at the window, and Sophie’s incredulous world is dropped for ever as she must make everyone (save Kimberley) believe the world of giants: and they’re not all as friendly, nor as (comparatively) small as the BFG. Sophie in miniature is animated by Ailsa Dalling and Aki Nakagawa.
The rapport is immediate, Leader’s a winning presence and stamps warmth with Dahl’s language as if it communicates kindness through its very idiom. Siobhan’s movement is everywhere apparent too. When full-size the BFG’s three puppeteers (Ben Thompson, Shaun McCourt, Elisa de Grey, Onioluwa Taiwo) round out his movement. That’s important: more jagged movements belong to other giants.
Leader’s in gobblefunking contrast to the villainous Blooodbotttler. Richard Riddell, no stranger to dark characters, delights in being placed downstage (a canny move, isolating him) where his presence irradiates sheer nastiness. His giant avatars (Fred Davis, Corey Mitchell, Sonya Cullingford) manage the larger puppet with an inbuilt sweep and menace.
There’s something mischievous about Helena Lymbery’s Queen, a hint of Prunella Scales and the moment Helen Mirren goes out of the theatre to swear at noise-makers. Lymbery anchors the scenes she’s in, around whom constellates butler Tibbs, full of surprises as Sargon Yelda veers between self-abasement and hidden military skills. Pompous Captain Smith (Philip Labey) and unintelligible moustache-challenged Captain Frith (Luke Sumner) form a deliciously absurd double-act: especially as Frith breaks down in front of the psychologising therapy of the BFG. J. R. Ballantyne and Lottie Johnson perform mirrored routines as if from the more vulgar displays of the Ritz.
It’s certainly a wondercump. What the production manages is a cosy virtuosity halfway between spectacle and enchantment. There’s a gentling with some of Dahl’s darker imaginings yet ruder elements children delight in haven’t been skimped. The starry backstop, special effects like the shadow of helicopters (Leader pronounced a word I won’t try spelling) and a swirling cast convey both scale and an intimacy anyone can relate to. Leader and on this occasion Bailey Vine and Patel form a blissful quartet with Lymbery’s Monacher, Maj or Queen. The rapture throughout – this isn’t a musical but clapping is spontaneous – is an infallible indicator. Evans and his team have transported the magic so completely it’s taken up residence. Both outstanding and a delight: in one bound Chichester (and the RSC) break the ice that held this tardy spring.
Casting Director Christopher Worrall CDG, Children’s Casting Director Verity Naughton CDG, Musi Supervisor, Additional Orchestrations & Arrangements Theo Jamieson, Associate Director Louise Shephard, Senior Assistant Director Matt Hellyer.
Sound System designer Steven Atkinson, Assistant Music Director Sara de Sanctis, Production Manager David Tanqueray, Assistant Production Manager Lucy Guyver, Costume supervisor Zoe Thomas-Webb, Props Supervisor Jess Buckley, Deputy Props Supervisor Katrina Stewart, Wigs, Hair & Make-Up Supervisors Sarah Kemp, Sandra Smith.
Company Manager Maria Baker, Stage Manager Peter Barnett, DSM Andrew Reed, ASMs Jinwen Chen, Declan Smith, Dan Cook.
