It had to be dark and funny, not a Disney thing. In our first meeting, I still lectured him about how he wasn’t allowed to fuck it up because I’m a Dahl head and not very into musicals. I thought: “I’m a rock star now and I don’t need to go back to writing children’s theatre.” But I looked up Matthew Warchus, who was going to direct it – and the dude had won Tony awards. When the RSC asked me if I’d heard of Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and if I’d ever thought of writing music for theatre, I was like: “Are you kidding me?” Years earlier, I’d written to the Dahls to ask if I could turn it into a musical. And that’s what I love about Matilda – it’s rough and ready theatre but done really well. ![]() A low rent but extremely theatrical moment. We had all these ideas about how to do it, like using a big balloon or a bubble, but in the end we just had a kid do a burping face over a simple sound and light effect. Schoolboy Bruce Bogtrotter’s big chocolatey burp became very important. We never sent it up – Bertie would turn around and you’d get a gasp from the audience as they think: “Oh, it’s a man!” Then you forget that and we get on with the story. He approached it like a method actor and lost himself in it. But Bertie Carvel’s performance was incredible. My worry about a man was that it might be a bit pantomime, so when the story gets to a dark place you wouldn’t believe in the character. I had also imagined Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress, would be played by a woman. It was Tim who was very keen on casting kids. There was one workshop where Matilda was played by a puppet, another where she was a child and everyone else adults. ![]() Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The GuardianĪt first, I had imagined adults would play the children. ‘He approached it like a method actor’ … Bertie Carvel as Miss Trunchbull with Lauren Ward as Miss Honey.
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