THEATRE REVIEW: James and the Giant Peach ★★★

James and The Giant Peach
The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham

Like Matilda, Roald Dahl was the original writer for this story, and you could clearly see a few similarities with both stories, as, James and The Giant Peach, was a great ball of enjoyment with a brilliant soundtrack to delight the audience. 

Firstly, the cast were spot on with their characters, and the casting had been done nicely, with multiple roles for a few of the cast. Tom Gilles felt like he was born to play James, with a nice voice to suit the character of the little boy, and had balls of enthusiasm and energy.


The set was also brilliant. The peach was a obviously thought through a lot, and the orange panels that made the peach made it very naturalistic. 

The stairs that were fitted for the second act were also a great addition to the set, and came in useful when needed. 


The props were brilliantly used to the best of their ability, especially when a fishing rod was used to hang a peach on and a helicopter when there was a TV report scene early on in the story.

 The Songs in the play were so good and funny, it really fitted to the story and one of my favourite’s was the shark song, where they travelled around on skateboards whilst ‘swimming’ and then on scooters whilst hunting ‘prey’.  

The sequences and transitions were also a good addition. The use of hula hoops worked perfectly when james was ‘entering’ the peach’ and the underwater scene work amazingly well with the UV lighting and was one of the highlights of the show.


Talking of highlights, another one would be the use of puppets in the story. There was one for James, his parents, an old man and another James that was used in the UV sequence set underwater. 

The interaction with the audience was a nice touch. The TV report when the reporter asked members of the audience how they would describe the peach was a nice segment and another was when the audience had to help the peach from not smashing down a hill, by throwing a giant orange balloon through the audience, up from the balcony right down into the stalls and finally onto the stage. 

Overall, James and The Giant Peach was a real delight and a great joy. Now having watched two Roald Dahl stories produced on stage, it’s nice to know that they are nicely thought through with much consideration, and I cannot wait to see which one gets transformed next, because one thing’s for sure, I’ll be there to capture it!