Review Roundup: GIANT at The Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Court Theatre is presenting the world premiere of Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play Giant, directed by Nicholas Hytner. The production features Tony and Golden Globe-winner John Lithgow who stars Roald Dahl and Olivier Award-winner Elliot Levey as Tom Maschler, Dahl’s British Jewish Publisher. Rachael Stirling stars as Felicity Crosland, Roald Dahl’s fiancée; alongside Romola Garai as Jessie Stone, Dahl’s Jewish American publisher; Tessa Bonham Jones as Hallie, the Dahl family’s housekeeper; and Richard Hope as Wally Saunders, Dahl’s handyman.

​A world-famous children’s author under threat. A battle of wills in the wake of scandal. And one chance to make amends...  It’s the summer of 1983, The Witches is about to hit the shelves and Roald Dahl is making last-minute edits.  But the outcry at his recent, explicitly antisemitic article won’t die down. Across a single afternoon at his family home, and rocked by an unexpectedly explosive confrontation, Dahl is forced to choose: make a public apology or risk his name and reputation. 

Inspired by real events, Giant explores with dark humour the difference between considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric offering a complicated portrait of a fiendishly charismatic icon. 

Giant is designed by Olivier Award-winning theatre designer Bob Crowley with lighting design by Anna Watson, sound design by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite and casting by Arthur Carrington. Completing the creative team is Bellaray Bertrand-Webb as Assistant Director  and Jaimie Todd as Associate Designer. See what the critics are saying...

Gary Naylor, BroadwayWorld: A flawed play then, but one that at least tries to address thorny key issues of the day in politics and art. Will it, as the best theatre should, change minds or, if that is too much to ask, at least challenge mindsets? That question is subjective and in the eye of the beholder, but I doubt anyone seeing the play will turn on the radio the next morning to hear of more carnage in Gaza or Southern Lebanon and form a new view on its origins or its potential outcomes. Nor do I believe anyone will see Matilda, Charlie or James any differently, nor even the infamous Witches either. Maybe a parent or two might offset the thirst many kids develop for Dahl with some of Charles M ‘Sparky’ Schulz’s Peanuts cartoons. And that would be a good thing.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: As debut plays go, Giant has some very experienced hands behind it. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, who runs the Bridge Theatre, and written by Mark Rosenblatt, a director for more than two decades, it sounds like cheating to call it a debut although it is indeed Rosenblatt’s first foray into writing for the stage. You would not know it from a slowly brilliant first act, stupendously performed by its cast, which mixes fact with fiction in its dramatisation of a scandalous moment in the life of the children’s writer Roald Dahl.

Sophie Luck, West End Best Friend: The production of Giant and Lithgow’s performance were highly anticipated, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. Rosenblatt’s play is powerful and poignant and questions if you can ever separate the words from the writer.