'Giant' review – John Lithgow is terrific at conveying the two sides of author Roald Dahl in this provocative new play

Read our review of biographical drama Giant, directed by Nicholas Hytner, now in performances at the Royal Court to 16 November

Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play Giant takes place during summer of 1983, when the 67-year-old Roald Dahl’s divorce from his first wife, the American actress Patricia Neal, was about to finalised. Liccy Crosland, with whom he had been having an affair for over a decade, has moved in and marriage is finally on the cards, and The Witches, perhaps his scariest title of all, is about to be published.

Things were pretty rosy, except for the policeman at the door of his idyllic Great Missenden home. Dahl, who had long been an articulate and dedicated supporter of Palestine, had written a glowing review of a book condemning the siege of West Beirut during the 1982 Israel-Lebanon War. However, some readers interpreted his comments as conflating the actions of the Israel with all Jewish people.

It’s an unusually starry creative team for a first play (Rosenblatt is an experienced director), being helmed by theatre titan Nicholas Hytner, and performed by a distinguished cast. Dahl was a giant of children’s literature who happened to be 6ft 4in as well as the creator of The Big Friendly Giant (The BFG), and, for better or for worse, a real larger-than-life character.

It starts as a drawing-room comedy of manners and it never stops feeling uncharacteristically old-fashioned for the Royal Court (which usually doesn’t accept submissions of biographical plays). The house is under construction (a bohemian building site designed by Bob Crowley) as Liccy (Rachael Sterling) is an interior designer clearly keen to put her own stamp on the place where Dahl and Neal raised their family.

Dahl, who suffered from chronic back pain, is cantankerous, carping about the “Sidcup cherub” Quentin Blake’s illustrations upstaging his words, and not being afforded the same respect as grown-up authors like Kingsley Amis – but in an avuncular way.

Beloved American actor John Lithgow is terrific in conveying Dahl’s charm and cruelty that are essentially two sides of the same coin; he still sees himself as a dashing World War II fighter pilot and needles all his guests in a kind of twisted parlour game.

Into the lion’s den comes Jessie Stone (Romola Garai), the Jewish-American sales director of Dahl’s US publisher, on a damage control mission. Dahl instantly takes against her, yet in the midst of his tirades shows great compassion when he deduces that Jessie’s 15-year-old son, to whom she still reads, has developmental difficulties like his own son.

Elliot Levey plays Dahl’s publisher Tom Maschler, formerly a German Kindertransport refugee who seems to be unique in coming through the Holocaust physically and emotionally unscathed (or so he says – we never hear about what happened to his family). He feels no connection to Israel (why should he?) and, perhaps misguidedly, great loyalty towards Dahl.

The weakest elements are the characterisations of the “help” characters. New Zealand temporary housekeeper Hallie (Tessa Bonham Jones) and faithful retainer Wally (Richard Hope) are essentially there so that Dahl has someone wishy-washy and cap-doffing respectively to offload to.

It’s clear that Dahl had a long history as a bully, and the staggering final telephone call with the New Statesman shows that he felt entitled to express the most abhorrent views, yet he’s convinced that it went extremely well and will support his knighthood application (he demonstrates Prince Andrew levels of self-awareness).

Jessie will still read his books to her son, separating the art from the artist, but the internet didn’t exist then. Dahl’s legacy in wider culture may look very different if it had done.

Giant is at the Royal Court to 16 November. Book Giant tickets on London Theatre.

Photo credit: Giant (Photos by Manuel Harlan)