Tim Minchin gives onstage life to Roald Dahl classic with Matilda The Musical
MATILDA The Musical bounds on to the stage in Melbourne in a flurry of books, bullies, battleaxes and boofheads.
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MATILDA The Musical bounds on to the stage in Melbourne in a flurry of books, bullies, battleaxes and boofheads.
Featuring Tim Minchin’s cunning music and lyrics, the musical is based on Roald Dahl’s 1998 children’s novel about five year-old Matilda Wormwood (Ingrid Torelli), a child prodigy with an alarming intellect and a remarkable interest in reading classic novels.
Matilda’s crude, neglectful and stupid parents (Marika Aubrey, Daniel Frederiksen) loath her braininess and send her to be tamed at the hellish Crunchem Hall, a Dickensian school run by the thuggish Miss Trunchbull (James Millar) who believes all children are maggots and are guilty of — well, everything.
Minchin’s ingenious, witty lyrics illuminate characters and nimbly advance the narrative, while his tunes include chants, anthems, big choruses and forlorn ballads.
Two standout songs are Miracle (My Mummy Says I’m A---), the rollicking opening chorus, and Revolting Children, a boisterous, hilarious routine in which the children join forces and rebel.
The School Song is also enhanced by Peter Darling’s audacious choreography and Matthew Warchus’s direction, with kids clambering acrobatically over a prison-like iron gate.
Matilda’s obsession with books is embodied in Rob Howell’s eye-catching design comprising enormous bookshelves and giant building blocks decorated with letters and musical notes.
Ingrid Torelli is a wonderfully precocious sweetie-pie as Matilda, and she effectively captures the poker-faced restraint of this neglected, unloved girl who is determined to be a champion of books, justice and honesty.
Matilda not only has exceptional reading ability but also manifests telekinetic ability and, weirdly, clairvoyant storytelling.
The charming child cast is multi-talented, but Daniel Stow’s Bruce is a sympathetic chappy who is constantly in trouble, particularly when he nicks the headmistress’s choccy cake and becomes an anti-hero.
Warchus’s production emphasises the grotesquerie of Dahl’s characters and Millar is a hilariously sinister villain, revelling in Miss Trunchbull’s bullying behaviour, playing this absurd, hammer-throwing gold medallist as a surly clown with a touch of panto dame. Remember Aunty Jack?
Minchin’s songs, the big chorus numbers, and Miss Trunchbull are highlights in Matilda, and Dahl would be happy to see his characters populating the stage in this family musical.
Stars: 4/5
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