Puppet stars in family-friendly stage adaptation of Roald Dahl’s anti-bullying tale The BFG

The BFG

Royal Shakespeare Company
Esplanade Theatre
April 24, 7pm

What does a friendly face look like? Mostly blank, a reverential gaze when it is directed heavenwards. A mouth that preferably opens to refer to the Queen of England in her pyjamas by “Your Majester”.

Puppetry designer Toby Olie’s nearly 5m-tall legless effigy of the titular Big Friendly Giant in this adaptation of English author Roald Dahl’s 1982 classic tale is an archetype of friendliness that is as regal and pleasant to look at as it is strangely flat.

This big-budget production is by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Chichester Festival Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and Roald Dahl Story Company.

First premiering in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, it is a straightforward appeal to children and their parents, among whom the appeal of Dahl’s funky imagination is unabated, despite some recent backlash against his politics.

Unlike his best known James And The Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (1964), The BFG is a more straightforward anti-bullying story of the weak versus the apparently strong. Orphan girl Sophie (Ellemie Shivers) is whisked away by the BFG (John Leader) to Giant Country, before plotting their return.

The simple story is amped up with bells and whistles of some dreamy puppetry playing with perspective and scale. The BFG is split roughly between Leader and his lookalike giant puppet, but later is also a much smaller and more mobile unit in the face of his torturers, the real giants of Giant Country.

Spiky Sophie also has more miniature representation. Producers are not sticklers for their ratios to one another and to the objects around them, so they shrink and grow somewhat randomly and magically.

It makes for absorbing visual interest, the audience left pining for the next switch. Sometimes, two sizes play out simultaneously – perhaps most successfully in the opening act, when Leader peers into a model of the house while his eye is projected onto a screen to observe Sophie in her bunk bed.

But there are limits to the success of this theatricality. The frequent switcheroo means the giant puppets, naturally more elephantine and ponderous, often come with a jarring tempo change, obvious in comparison to their human counterparts and co-actors.

Unlike French-Norwegian theatre company Plexus Polaire’s 2024 presentation of Moby Dick at Singtel Waterfront Theatre, which deployed its giants more sparingly, there is not enough smoke and noise to distract from this dramatic deceleration when they emerge.

Granted, this is a show about giants, and producers might have had little choice but to play out scenes at scale, but there is little whump-thud earth rumbling to signal their weight.

The smaller puppets, though, are mesmeric: Sophie’s is imbued with a vivacity to match the real-life child as she scoots up the giant’s arm.

The point, however, is well-made: that size is relative and strength based on bulk is but illusory.

Director Daniel Evans instructs the actors to play scenes in an exaggerated, wholesome way suitable for children, with few moments for sadness or introspective reflection, everything delivered for the punchline.

Through it all, however, Dahl’s “delumptious” language still evokes raucous laughter, as does a concerto of farts – more politely, “whizzpops” – stimulated by a drink that should really have by now been invented.

For two hours, the kids yelped and occasionally cowered in a make-believe world where evil is banished to a land outside the map. Fret not, the mature themes will come later.

Book It/Roald Dahl’s The BFG

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