Royal Shakespeare Company excited to stage Roald Dahl’s ‘inspirational’ BFG

Royal Shakespeare Company’s co-artistic director has shared his excitement at staging Roald Dahl’s “really inspirational” children’s novel The BFG as part of their upcoming programme.

Daniel Evans is directing the production about the Big Friendly Giant who captures an orphan named Sophie and brings her back to his home in Giant Country.

The new stage adaptation by playwright Tom Wells will delight families over the festive period, kicking off a 10-week run at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from November 25 to January 31 before moving to the Chichester Festival Theatre next Spring.

“They have to float through the air and go into jars and trumpets and be blown into people’s ears, they’re enough of a challenge.”

He added: “I’m just very, very excited because it’s a really inspirational story about an orphan girl who teams up with a giant and a Queen to beat the baddies, and hopefully there’ll be magic.”

The story from the 1982 children’s novel by British author Dahl follows the kind-hearted and big-eared BFG, who kidnaps young Sophie from an orphanage.

While the BFG is a gentle soul, his home in Giant Country is full of much bigger giants including Fleshlumpeater and Meatdripper, who pick on the BFG and feast on humans.

Sophie and the BFG team up on an unlikely adventure which takes them to Dream Country and Buckingham Palace, where they meet the Queen and try to enlist her help to save children everywhere.

Evans and and his RSC co-artistic director Tamara Harvey said it was a “dream come true” for them to collaborate with The Roald Dahl Story Company and Chichester Festival Theatre on the adaptation.

The book has previously been adapted for the 2016 fantasy adventure film which was directed and co-produced by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg and starred Sir Mark Rylance as the BFG and Ruby Barnhill as Sophie.

An earlier animated version from Cosgrove Hall productions in 1989 featured the voice of Sir David Jason as the BFG.

Roald Dahl Story Company artistic director Jenny Worton said The BFG “opens a magical new chapter” for the company following the success of the previous shows.

“Our dream is to bring mischievous joy to audiences of all ages through our growing family of live shows,” she added.

“After years of delicious inventing with Tom Wells, Daniel Evans, and the wider creative team, we are excited to share our passion for this iconic story with the rest of the world.

“Alongside Chichester Festival Theatre, we’ve created something full of imagination and heart, just as you’d expect from the world of Roald Dahl.”

Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2025/26 programme also features three adaptations of the classic tragedy Hamlet and a host of other Shakespearean productions.

It was previously announced Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke is reworking the band’s album Hail To The Thief for a new stage production of Hamlet.

Also among the line-up is nationwide tours of Rupert Goold’s adaption of Hamlet and First Encounters: King Lear.

There will be a 80-minute staging of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona as well as Tim Crouch’s I, Peaseblossom – his hit adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The programme also includes interactive theatre workshops, free drop-in activities, family theatre trails, and the return of the RSC’s acting-based Summer schools for ages eight to 14 and 18-25.

Discussing their programme, Harvey told PA: “One of our core responsibilities as a National Theatre is to ensure that as many people as possible can see our work, and that’s from the very old to the very young.”

Priority booking for the BFG production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre opens from 10am on Friday January 31, with public booking opening at 10am on February 12. Tickets for the Chichester Festival Theatre will open in September.