THE BFG

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★★

“a production designed to entertain while celebrating imagination, dreams and friendship”

A young girl, a lonely giant and a world of dreams collide in this imaginative stage version of The BFG. Adapted by Tom Wells with additional material by Jenny Worton, the production brings Roald Dahl’s beloved story to the stage with a blend of puppetry, theatrical ingenuity and mischievous humour.

The story centres on Sophie, an orphan troubled by sleepless nights, who encounters the Big Friendly Giant during one of his midnight wanderings. Swept away to Giant Country, Sophie (Martha Bailey Vine) gradually realises that her captor, the BFG (John Leader), is not like the other giants who roam the world in search of children to devour. Instead he spends his nights collecting dreams and survives on the resolutely inedible snozzcumber. As Sophie begins to understand the scale of the threat posed by the other giants, including the blustering Bloodbottler (Richard Riddell), the unlikely pair devise a plan to stop them, one that ultimately involves soliciting the help of the Queen (Helena Lymbery).

Directed by Daniel Evans, the production places its emphasis on theatrical storytelling. The first half takes a little time to find its momentum as it establishes the world of giants and dreams, but once past this scene-setting the show settles into a livelier rhythm. Much of its charm lies in an inventive play with scale and perspective, using props, video and puppetry to evoke a world shared by giants and humans. From the magical doll’s house orphanage to lantern-like silhouettes of London landmarks and the decidedly unappetising snozzcumbers, the design constantly toys with proportion.

Central to this approach is the use of both human performers and puppet versions of characters to emphasise scale. The puppetry, designed and directed by Toby Olié with co-designers Daisy Beattie and Seb Mayer, provides a clever theatrical solution to the story’s shifting perspectives. It works particularly well in scenes between Sophie and the BFG. At times it becomes a little confusing, particularly when both puppet and human versions appear on stage together without an obvious narrative reason, but it remains an imaginative response to the story’s visual challenges.

At its centre is John Leader as the BFG. Balancing physical performance with the puppet’s presence, Leader brings awkward humour alongside a gentler melancholy, capturing the character’s mixture of innocence and quiet resilience. Sophie, played on press night by Martha Bailey Vine, captures the character’s blend of curiosity, vulnerability and determination. Helena Lymbery brings comic authority to the Queen, moving from a lonely monarch attended by her butler Tibbs (Sargon Yelda) to a decisive problem-solver once Sophie and the BFG arrive at Buckingham Palace. Philip Labey and Luke Sumner are particularly funny as the Queen’s guards, Captain Smith and Captain Frith, their elaborate moustaches becoming a running gag that lands equally well in both human and puppet form. Richard Riddell relishes the brutish swagger of the Bloodbottler, while Sophie’s friend Kimberley is played on press night by Uma Patel, bringing warmth and charm to the role and ending the play with a delightful sense of wonder, celebrating both her and the audience’s love of the magical.

The visual world is shaped by designer Vicki Mortimer, whose set moves fluidly between orphanage dormitory, Buckingham Palace and the strange landscape of Giant Country, while costumes by Kinnetia Isidore reflect the production’s playful, dreamlike aesthetic. Lighting by Zoe Spurr, video design by Akhila Krishnan and illusions by Chris Fisher help shift the tone from shadowy night-time encounters to the bright absurdity of the royal court. Music by Oleta Haffner and sound design from Carolyn Downing support the production’s blend of humour and unease, while movement direction by Ira Mandela Siobhan gives the giants and dream sequences a distinctive physical language. The puppets themselves are brought vividly to life by a skilled team of performers including Ben Thompson, Shaun McCourt, Elisa de Grey, Onioluwa Taiwo, Fred Davis, Corey Mitchell, Parkey Abeyratne and Sonya Cullingford.

Evans’s staging keeps the focus firmly on the unlikely friendship at the centre of the story, delivering a production designed to entertain while celebrating imagination, dreams and friendship.

THE BFG

Chichester Festival Theatre

Reviewed on 12th March 2026

by Ellen Cheshire

Photography by Marc Brenner

The BFG is a Chichester Festival Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, and Roald Dahl Story Company production

THE BFG

★★★

“an authentic taste of Japanese theatre and art that Hoaglund’s translation respects”

At first there is silence. A slowly revolving set, plain white but daubed with an insect caught in a web of vivid brush strokes. The characters will gradually get lured into the web too over the next hour and a half. Many metaphors too; enough of them to feed the hungriest black widow. Lanterns hover above, vibrating like moths around a flame, or like the early tremors of an impending earthquake. Another metaphor? Who really knows? Takuya Kaneshima’s play, “Tattooer”, is inscrutable enough to withhold the answers, but open enough to leave us hanging on in the vain hope that we might find them.

Based on, or rather inspired by, the short story – ‘Shisei’ – by renowned Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, it centres on Seikichi (Leo Ashizawa), a tattoo artist of high repute whose longtime wish is to ‘carve his soul’ into the skin of a beautiful woman. We never really understand his motives; whether it is merely to create a masterpiece or whether there is something more ominous going on. Seikichi relishes the pain of the tattoo too much. There are explicit undertones of sado-masochism, and there is something sinister and lecherous about him. Coercive even. Far from erotic, it renders Seikichi a wholeheartedly unlikeable character.

Before we meet him, we are introduced to the tattooer’s muse (is ‘tattooee’ a word?). She is Kazuyo, initially frightened but her compliance roots her to her fate. We are plunged into further obscurity by the fact that Kazuyo is split into two characters. Mao Aono is ‘Kazuyo A’ while Aki Nakagawa is ‘Kazuyo B’. The pair give wonderfully restrained and haunting performances. Their movements are sculptured, like ivory netsukes that slot into each other’s bodies and personalities. But like the play itself, our minds are filled with questions that never find their answers. Linda Hoaglund’s translation is as sparse as the original text’s intention, leaving us to rely on the almost mime-like spectacle – at times beautiful, at other times grotesque. Are they two sides of the same woman, are they sisters? Are they body and soul separated? Does Aono represent the pre-tattoo Kazuyo while Nakagawa depicts the aftermath? Are they representations of death and life?

Seikichi drugs Kazuyo A into submission. Kazuyo B wakes up transformed. Nakagawa deftly demonstrates a triumphant cruelty as the roles are reversed and the tattooer seems now to be the victim. But this is where our understanding becomes buried under the weight of allegory. Seikichi blinds himself. A twisted moment but gripping, courtesy of Rob Halliday’s lighting and Hogara Kawai’s direction. Black blood splatters through a crimson haze.

It is a short piece, and we are invited to stay in the auditorium at interval to watch the ink-brush painter Gaku Azuma paint the back of a newly arrived male model. By the second act he has created a work of art that covers the entire playing space (at the end of the run these should be put up for auction). The newcomer is Nozomi de Lencquesaing, an Englishman who has crossed the oceans to find the ‘legend’ that is Seikichi. A touch superfluous, it nevertheless brings the differing cultures closer together. But even without it, the evening is an authentic taste of Japanese theatre and art that Hoaglund’s translation respects. It may be an acquired taste for many, but it is sharp and refreshing. And mystifying. Kazuyo asks of the now blind tattooer; “Am I in the world I see, or the world you see?” We, too, are never entirely sure whose world we are seeing here. Yet it is an intriguing one. Picturesque and alluring, but too much of an enigma that never really gets under the skin.

Tag Archives: Aki Nakagawa

THE BFG

★★★★

Chichester Festival Theatre

THE BFG

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★★

“a production designed to entertain while celebrating imagination, dreams and friendship”