Little Grey Cells Club’s Event and Community Director Fiona Cullen reviews Mark Rosenblatt’s electrifying new play where John Lithgow portrays beloved author Roald Dahl’s much darker side.
‘Giant’ is a play centred on an uncomfortable truth – Roald Dahl’s antisemitism. As a lifelong fan of Dahl’s work, I was excited but simultaneously nervous to see how the play tackled a hugely sensitive and emotive topic and if my views of Dahl would be irrevocably challenged moving forward.
I was not disappointed: Giant is a powerhouse of a play that not only confronts one of the most contentious issues of our time but does so with a ferocious, unflinching intelligence that leaves audiences both exhilarated and unsettled.
Rather than tiptoe around the hornets’ nests of antisemitism, Israeli-Palestinian tensions and the uneasy relationship between an artist’s problematic behaviour and art, the play dives headlong into the fray, stirring up a storm of debate and emotion.
At the centre of the maelstrom is John Lithgow’s towering performance as Roald Dahl. Not only does Lithgow bare an uncanny resemblance to Dahl, but his characterisation embodies the children’s author with a gruff-yet-twinkling, grandfatherly charm that initially endears. He’s a complex, contradictory character: a giant in stature and literary achievement, supremely intelligent and yet prone to childish tantrums and mercurial petulance.
Set in 1983, with Dahl suffering a bad back, a noisy house renovation, a recent engagement to his former mistress, and a forthcoming book, his irascibility is understandable. When his publisher suggests a temporary move to a cottage, Dahl’s blunt ripost “I don’t fit in cottages” is both funny and revealing.
But the play’s real tension arises from Dahl’s recent, venomously antisemitic review of a book about Israel’s bombing of Lebanon. His publishers, friend and editor Tom Maschler (played with panache by Elliot Levey) and American Jessie Stone (a superbly fiery Aya Cash) arrive to coax an apology from him.
Cash is outstanding, bringing a brittle confidence to Stone that is gradually eroded by Dahl’s relentless browbeating, at one stage literally and metaphorically backed into the wall, her fury and fear palpable in equal measure.
On the surface, this is a classic drawing-room drama, a form with which the West End is intimately familiar. What sets Giant apart is its uncompromising willingness to tackle the most explosive questions head-on.
Within minutes of meeting Stone, Dahl asks, “Are you Jewish?” The ensuing confrontation is electric, with sparks flying, eyes flashing, and daggers drawn. Dahl emerges as a complex figure: at times a compassionate advocate for the oppressed, at others a spiteful child unable to control his emotions, lashing out with vitriol.
The play’s traditional structure is subverted by its daring content and the audience is forced to grapple with discomfort, outrage, and shock as the arguments unfold. Giant does not shy away from any of the big issues: Israel and Palestine, censorship, the separation of art from artist, and the moral dilemmas faced by publishers when their authors cross the line.
This is not the whimsical world of Quentin Blake’s wispy illustrations. The venomous nastiness is real. The production is sharp and witty, with humour bubbling under the surface, but the underlying seriousness is never in doubt. The play demands that these arguments be heard, in all their ugliness, in the hope that by facing them head-on, we might finally move beyond them.
Giant is a play that not only provokes but also entertains, proving that the West End can be a home for serious, challenging theatre and a work that lingers in the mind long after the curtain falls.
‘Giant’ is showing until 2 August 2025. Tickets here.
