Oxford Playhouse

Friday 19th February; 5pm

“David Wood’s talk was more of a lecture focused on sharing accumulated knowledge on adapting children’s books to plays than it was about Dahl’s ‘utterly inventive world’.” Laurel Steinfield ★★★★★

“He stated difficulties of working with theatre as a medium and incorporating elements of children’s literature into his work. He engaged his young audience, much like an educator rather than a lecturer would.” Judyta Frodyma ★★★★★

The Utterly Inventive World of Roald Dahl ★★★★★

Review by Laurel Steinfield

It was ‘Kindergartner’ meets ‘University Lecture’ as David Wood tried to engage and educate the varied-aged audience sitting before him.

I sat in my seat and looked down my row.  Next to me was a white haired couple.  Next to them was a middle aged 30-something couple.  And next to them sat a whole row of kids aged 4-13.  Every row I looked at seemed to carry with it similar demographics.  I wondered how David Wood was going to manage this crowd.  On the stage was a chair, a table with a bottle of water, and a flip chart. When David came on stage, it was such an informal process that one could have mistaken the whole scene for a common university lecture.

Given the circumstances, I must applaud David for his ability to keep the children entertained while delivering a synopsis which was geared more for an adult audience.

Roald Dahl, for those of you who do not know, is the author of children’s books. His titles include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, to name but a few.  David Wood has adapted 7 of Dahl’s books into children’s plays.

David Wood’s talk was more of a lecture focused on sharing accumulated knowledge on adapting children’s books to plays than it was about Dahl’s ‘utterly inventive world’.

The show seemed like a common classroom setting, although instead of adults answering, most of the time it was children. At times I think the concepts went over the heads of the younger crowds. In between the ‘university lecture’ components of the talk, David would stop to clarify a big word for the younger ones – Protagonist, Subversive, etc – but I think they were hoping, like myself, to see some excerpts of the plays.  Unfortunately, the excerpts were given only at the end for a mere 5 minutes.

David did give us a great list of ‘key ingredients’ for a children’s book which I will be sure to use if I find myself having to write children’s stories.  However, he only briefly touched on how he was able to transfer some of the key ingredients (such as Animals or Magic/Fantasy) to the plays.  The idea of a how to achieve a ‘faithful adaptation’ was left incomplete as David’s discussions turned towards his tendencies to venture off from a ‘faithful adaptation’: in order to make a play work, a play-writer often has to massage the contents of a book to fit more in line with the structure of a play. Thus, David confessed that he would often end up changing the order of the book to place cliff hangers at the half way intervals and alter the endings so that they would meet a climatic ending. But all of this information still left me wondering how one achieves a ‘faithful adaptation’ or if this is even possible.

David Wood did shed some brief light on Ronald Dahl – casting nuanced statement to give the impression that the 6’7” tall man was one who would be abhorred (and perhaps rolling in his grave) if he knew what David was up.

During the ‘lecture’, David did manage to throw in a quiz every now and then to keep us all on our toes.  The quizzes gave me tidbits of information to chew on momentarily.  For example, why do theatres demand play-writers include intervals?  To sell ice cream of course!  And what is the most famous children’s story in the world?  It’s not Harry Potter… It’s Cinderella!

The main drawback of the night was that I didn’t learn about Roald Dahl and his ‘utterly inventive world’ as I thought I would. Instead, I walked away with a neatly numbered list of ‘critical ingredients’ good for making a children’s book, a haphazard accumulation of points on the adaptation process, and that Cinderella is the most famous princess of them all.

The Utterly Inventive World of Roald Dahl ★★★★★

Review by Judyta Frodyma

I had walked into the theatre with the growing suspicion that there was just something innately wrong with adapting Roald Dahl’s works to the stage, even if merely for the lack of effects available to a playwright other than the audience’s imagination. David Wood confirmed my suspicion with an honest and revealing anecdote about how much Roald Dahl had hated the theatre. At 6″7, he always felt he was obscuring someone else’s view, was married to a film star & despised her friends, but most importantly, would not have wanted anyone to meddle with his work. However, Wood also managed to convince his audience – both young and old – of the power of the imagination and the precise use of it that would have probably be sanctioned by Dahl himself. Realizing that he had to justify, in particular to those of us who grew up with Roald Dahl in books, why he bothers to adapts his works at all. He stated difficulties of working with theatre as a medium and incorporating elements of children’s literature into his work. He engaged his young audience, much like an educator rather than a lecturer would.

It is important to note here that the production at hand was not quite that – it was essentially a one-hour chat (I veer away from saying lecture) about how and why he does what he does, with a dominating young audience. This also presented the problem of breaking some of Dahl’s magic in order to explain how it’s done, but Wood,  having worked with children managed to convey what his message to the adults without taking away any charm from the children. He let them speak, one boy interjecting endearingly, every time he mentioned a new Roald Dahl book: “I’ve got that one too! I’ve got it!”

With his soft gray hair, cheery tone, bushy eyebrows and large tortoiseshell glasses, he gave off the appearance of everyone’s jolly grandfather, and all this considered, made a strong case for himself and using Roald Dahl’s work to reach a larger audience. Overall, it was perhaps not as entertaining as seeing James & the Giant Peach, but a pleasant insight into the playwright’s world.