Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical tickets are now on sale ahead of the previews from the 18th May at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, while the opening World Premiere gala night is scheduled for the 25th June 2013. There is no better time to consider Roald Dahl’s contribution to inspiring the world of theatre with many shows adapted for the stage from his wonderful collection of books.

 

Amongst Roald Dahl’s works to feature as shows in London include The Big Friendly Giant at the Aldwych Theatre and, more recently and still playing to packed houses today at the Cambridge Theatre, the hugely successful Matilda the musical.

 

Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales to Norwegian parents. He served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II. 

 

Roald became an author in the 1940’s writing fiction for both adults and children. His stories are noted for their dark humour and often surreal subject matter.

 

His most famous stories for children include James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits, George’s Marvellous Medicine and The BFG. 

 

During Roald’s years at Repton school, Cadburys would send boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the pupils. Roald dreamt of inventing a new chocolate bar that would gain the admiration of Mr. Cadbury himself. This fantasy provided the inspiration for him to write his third book for children, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

 

His first children’s book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. The book published in 1943 was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made.

 

In his books, Roald Dahl often writes about very fat, grotesque characters. Many of these are children, to make them relatable to the readers. These include Augustus Gloop, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bruce Bogtrotter in Matilda and Bruce Jenkins in The Witches. These characters are typically gluttons and usually ending up coming to a sticky end. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Augustus Gloop drinks from Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, ignoring the adults who tell him not to, and falls in, getting sucked up a pipe and nearly being turned into fudge. In Matilda, Bruce Bogtrotter steals cake from the evil headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and is forced to eat a gigantic chocolate cake in front of the whole school. In The Witches, Bruno Jenkins is turned into a mouse by witches who lure him to their convention with the promise of chocolate.

 

Roald Dahl’s best-loved children’s stories featured original illustrations by Sir Quentin Blake, recently commemorated on a series of postage stamps in 2010. 

 

His 1961 novel, James and the Giant Peach, spawned a Disney film made in 1996 with both animations and live actors, including Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfus and Joanna Lumley. It was later turned in to a show in London and is still touring today, so we may well see it back at a London theatre soon.

 

Most famously his 1964 book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was adapted in to a film in 1971 starring Gene Wilder. Roald Dahl began adapting the screenplay of his own novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; after failing to meet the submission deadlines, the script was completed and rewritten by David Seltzer, and re-titled Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Dahl later disowned the film, saying he was disappointed because he thought it placed too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not enough on Charlie. He was also supposedly furious by the deviations in the plot devised by David Seltzer in his draft of the screenplay. This resulted in his refusal for any more versions of the book to be made in his lifetime, as well as an adaptation for the sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, a follow-up book he wrote in 1972.

 

A revised film version came out in 2005 starring Johnny Depp using the original title of the book, and eight years on from this a first stage production for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical opens (and with the involvement of Sam Mendes, the movie director who directs this show) as a show in London at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

 

Roald Dahl’s 1970 story, The Fantastic Mr. Fox was made in to an animated film in 2009. In 1975 he wrote Danny Champion of the World, which was later adapted into a film in 1989 starring Jeremy Irons. In 1982, Dahl wrote The BFG, which became an animated film in 1989, with the Big Friendly Giant of the title voiced by David Jason, and a stage version at the Aldwych Theatre, in 1991. 

 

His 1983 book, The Witches, became a successful film in 1990 starring Angelica Houston, Rowan Atkinson and Bill Paterson. Matilda written in 1988 was adapted in to a film in 1996 starring Mara Wilson as Matilda and Danny De Vito, and then a hugely successful West End musical at the Cambridge Theatre in London in 2011.

 

Roald Dahl also had success as an author of macabre adult short stories, usually with a twist in the tail (and the tale). He won three Edgar awards from The Mystery Writers of America for his work, and wrote more than 60 short stories, many of which featured in the ITV series Tales of the Unexpected, which ran from 1979 to 1988. Dahl introduced all the episodes of the first two series on screen. 

 

Roald Dahl married American actress Patricia Neal in 1953 and they had five children: Olivia, Tessa, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy. The family suffered a fair amount of tragedy with four-month-old Theo Dahl severely injured when his baby carriage was struck by a taxi in New York City. Olivia Dahl died of measles aged just seven; The BFG was dedicated to her in her memory. In 1965, his wife Patricia suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant with their fifth child, Lucy, to whom Matilda is co-dedicated; Roald oversaw her recovery and she eventually learned to walk and talk again, even returning to acting. Their life story was made in to a film, The Patricia Neal Story, in which the couple were played by Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde.

 

One of Roald’s more famous adult stories, “The Smoker”, also known as “Man From the South”, was filmed twice, first in 1960, starring Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre and again in 1985 as episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was later adapted into Quentin Tarantino’s segment of the 1995 film Four Rooms.

 

In the 1960s Roald Dahl also wrote film scripts including the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Bond and Dahl share another link; the director of the show in London, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical, is Sam Mendes, who helmed the latest Bond movie Skyfall. 

 

Roald also wrote the film script for Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which was later turned in to a hugely successful show in London at the London Palladium. Dahl created the character of the sinister Child Catcher.

 

Roald Dahl married Felicity “Liccy” Crosland, his second wife, following a divorce from Patricia Neal in 1983, and turned down an OBE in the 1986 New Year Honours List, purportedly because he wanted a knighthood so that his wife would be Lady Dahl.

 

He is the grandfather of author, cookbook writer and former model Sophie Dahl, after whom the little girl in the BFG is named.

 

Roald Dahl died on 23 November 1990, at the age of 74, of a blood disease. He was buried with his prized snooker cues, some excellent burgundy, chocolates, pencils and a power saw.

 

A quarter of a century after his death, the world is lucky that his wonderful evocative books have inspired so much creativity, including the latest adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

 

Tickets for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are now available to book online by clicking here.