4.8m-tall The BFG among puppets in Royal Shakespeare Company’s show in Singapore

SINGAPORE – At more than 4.8m tall, the towering Big Friendly Giant (BFG) puppet that will come alive at the Esplanade Theatre from April 22 is the tallest one that puppetry designer Toby Olie has ever worked on, requiring four puppeteers to steer.

With minute lifelike movements such as the tilt of a head and moveable brows, the puppets that Olie made for the show, he said, were “some of the most mechanism-heavy puppets I have been involved in creating”. He also designed the puppets in the 2022 hit stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli classic Spirited Away.

The choreography of puppets onstage promises to be a “delumptious” visual feast – with props like the dream-catching net built-in with special effects and the evil giants being inspired by Scandinavian folk art of trolls and the pink mottled skin texture of Asian elephants. It took his team of 14 puppetmakers 14 months to develop them.

The new stage version of The BFG, based on British children’s author Roald Dahl’s book of the same name, premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in November 2025 to generally positive reviews.

Having been seen by more than 75,000 people, the story of orphan Sophie, who is stolen by a benevolent vegetarian giant and taken to a world of other “human bean”-eating giants opens at the Esplanade Theatre on April 22.

It is a co-production between the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Chichester Festival Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Esplanade – Theatres On The Bay and Roald Dahl Story Company. The production is currently ongoing at Chichester before the show transfers to Singapore.

Director Daniel Evans, who is also the RSC’s co-artistic director, tells The Straits Times (ST) from Chichester that he initially toyed with the idea of using circus performers on stilts to represent the giants. But their movements were too slow and lumbering for Dahl’s giants, who could leap over mountains.

It was a conversation with Olie that convinced Evans, who is working with puppets for the first time, that the magic of puppetry was the right medium: “You’ve got the height, you’ve got the agility, you’ve got the articulation. Also, there’s something that happens with the audience when they’re able to project onto a puppet in a way that is not possible with a human. It’s a curious, beautiful kind of paradox.”

Evans, who is better known for directing works by Shakespeare and Ibsen, also experienced another first in directing The BFG – calling in three groups of young children as advance audiences to give feedback. One question from a young audience member stayed with him.

“She said: ‘Why does the BFG steal her in the first place? I want to know why – because if it happens to me, then I’ll be ready.’

“It was just wonderful to have a young person take the situation so seriously. It was a real thing for her – it wasn’t fiction.”

A motif that Evans is seizing upon in this new staging is the relationship between physical size and power. The BFG, for example, appears as a large puppet, a human actor (played by John Leader) and a small puppet.

“We think that because things are big, they’re powerful. We think because things are small, they’re without power. One of the amazing things about the show is that it proves that it isn’t always true. You can be a small orphan girl and feel very powerful.”

Responding to the controversy around the editing of offensive language in Dahl’s books in 2023, Evans says that Tom Wells’ adaptation is faithful to the original with a dash of his own personality.

“What should people expect? They should expect what they get from the novel, which is lots of humour – lots of naughty humour, a brand new language the BFG invents or gobblefunk – but they should also expect darker moments. We try to tread a path between, and we think that young people – and this is also true of (Dahl’s book) Matilda – enjoy these books partly because there are elements in them that are scary. So, we’re not shying away from that at all,” says Evans, referencing the RSC’s hit musical adaptation of Matilda in 2010.

Asked whether RSC’s adaptation of Studio Ghibli classic My Neighbour Totoro – which celebrates its one-year anniversary on the West End with a substantial number of Singaporean creatives on board – will have a chance to come to Singapore, Evans says: “Eventually – we will get there. We’re just allowing it to have its moment in the West End, but you can imagine that it is in demand all over the world.”

Ms Rachelle Tan, Esplanade’s assistant chief executive (enterprise), says discussions with SRT for the co-production began in 2024 and presented an opportunity to work with internationally renowned companies on a potentially global show. “This also allows Esplanade to move beyond being solely a presenter and venue to becoming a creative partner in works with global reach. Through these collaborations, Singapore is represented internationally whenever the production tours, contributing to the visibility of Esplanade on the world stage.”

Adding that the Esplanade has been “steadily ramping up our international co-commissions and collaborations” and will continue to explore future collaborations, Ms Tan says: “More broadly, co-producing projects like The BFG can also open pathways for Singapore practitioners. When productions tour internationally, there may be opportunities for artists and technical crew from Singapore to be part of the wider ecosystem of touring theatre.”

On what he looks forward to in the Singapore run, Evans says it is simply “to sit among a Singaporean audience” and observe audience reactions, as it is his habit. Of the premiere run in Stratford-upon-Avon, the most memorable reactions have come from a somewhat surprising source – grandfathers.

“I would often turn around and see these older men weeping at the end of the show. For a while I was thinking why they are so moved to tears, until I realised I was building a theory – which is that I think the grandparents see themselves as The BFG. They want to be that safe, caring, guiding, teaching, fun grandparent to the children.”

Book It/Roald Dahl’s The BFG

Where: Esplanade Theatre, 1 Esplanade Drive
When: April 22 to May 9, various timings
Admission: $48 to $268
Info: www.esplanade.com/TheBFG