TAKE Roald Dahl's funny, scary, imaginative storytelling, get Britain's top children's playwright David Wood to adapt it for stage, and you are assured of a magical success.
The Witches has been simply and brilliantly transported to stage at The Mayflower this week. A spellbinding night.
We see seven-year-old "Boy" (Dahl never gave him a proper name) magic into a mouse in a hair-raising run-in with some old witches, who plot to rid England of its children.
We learn how to spot them too, with their bald, pimpled heads, blue spit and teeth!
The play achieves just the right balance between being mildly scary and, at times, totally hilarious. There is a wonderful silent comedy scene where Boy and his fat, chocolate-scoffing friend Bruno are transformed into mice.
Watch out for a real hell's kitchen where chefs spit and sneeze into the witches' pea soup. I was in stitches.
The play is peppered with fantastic illusions and some excellent juxtaposition of scenery and projections.
Dilys Laye is a fantastic grandmother but I found it difficult to relate to Giles Cooper, a man in his 20s, as a seven-year-old boy.
Runs until Saturday.
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