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

★★★★

“Sometimes quirky, often heartbreaking, but invariably mesmerising”

‘Your future self is watching you right now through your memories’. The quotation, which has wormed its way into meme status on social media, can be traced back to biomedical scientist Aubrey de Grey, but any free thinker could probably come up with a similar truism. But it does make you think – and, as a concept, it forms the backbone of Anna Jordan’s two hander “Lost Atoms”. Jordan takes it a step further and has these future memories interrupting the present and correcting where necessary. The play sets out to show how a couple’s perspective of their relationship can alter over time thanks to the conflicting memories of each character. The effect is a slightly unnerving, quite brilliant and riveting watch.

The couple is Jess (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) and Robbie (Joe Layton). The microscopic lens through which we witness their story is echoed by Andrzej Goulding’s striking set comprising a towering wall of filing cabinets, which plays with our perception of space as much as the narrative plays with time. Many times, we feel as though we are looking down from above as the back wall becomes the floor. Director Scott Graham has Sinclair Robinson and Layton crawl across the banks of drawers that slide in and out, defying gravity with ease. This is true ‘Frantic Assembly’ at its finest.

Step away from the main concept and its stylised representation, and what you have is a fairly conventional love story, albeit one with unexpectedly sad twists. The two performances are outstanding. There is an instant connection between Sinclair Robinson and Layton, further welded by a smouldering chemistry. The dialogue is easy going and often humorous until, of course, things go wrong. The second act finds us in darker territory – audible gasps can sometimes be heard from the auditorium. It seems that no stone is left unturned, as we draw closer to the love story’s conclusion, unearthing original thoughts on the themes of grief, loss, pregnancy, marriage, fidelity, aging. Other characters are skilfully introduced and made real through the silent gaps of one-sided conversations. Jess and Robbie are the only ones speaking but we can clearly hear the whole conversation in our heads.

But some of the strongest moments are the wordless ones, when the couple’s natural intimacy progresses to deep sensuality during moments of abstract choreography. With Simisolar Majekodunmi’s stark and shadowy lighting and Julie Blake’s atmospheric music, the actors again pay no attention to gravity. A bed unfolds like a drawbridge at an impossibly steep angle while the actors move with the vertiginous ease of geckos. The cabinet drawers contain not just props and costumes, but metaphors that are pulled out at pivotal moments to enhance the narrative flow.

Eventually talk turns to hopes for the future, which in turn blur into the couple’s memories. It seems that their dreams are as untrustworthy and insubstantial as their memories. Our memories often betray us, we are being told. “Fairy tales are bullshit” Jess exclaims. Jordan has given us a haunting perspective of a relationship’s arc. The only real flaw is that it does stretch it out somewhat, making for quite a long play, and a couple of scenes are difficult to follow acoustically – never mind the atoms; occasionally the actors’ words are lost in the soft-spoken moments of truth. Yet it is beautifully poetic and insightful. Messy at times. Sometimes quirky, often heartbreaking, but invariably mesmerising. Memory might be unreliable, but “Lost Atoms” is unforgettable.

Tag Archives: Carolyn Downing

THE BFG

★★★★

Chichester Festival Theatre

THE BFG

Chichester Festival Theatre

★★★★

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