Stage version of the Olivier Award-winning play GIANT, with John Lithgow as Roald Dahl, directed by Nicholas Hytner.
GIANT comes to Gloucester Guildhall on Thursday 19 November, with a matinee on Sunday 22 November. It's a filmed version of the stage play, captured live in London's West End before its Broadway run, so you're seeing the full production on the big screen rather than a live cast on stage.
John Lithgow plays Roald Dahl, and the story is set in the summer of 1983, just as The Witches is about to be published. Dahl is hit by a confrontation over a recent, explicitly antisemitic article he wrote, and he's left with a choice: make a public apology or risk his reputation. The play, written and directed by Nicholas Hytner, uses dark humour to look at the difference between a considered opinion and dangerous rhetoric, and it draws on real events from Dahl's life. Lithgow is joined on stage by Aya Cash, Elliot Levey, and Rachael Stirling.
It's a heavy subject, but it's also a big-name production. The play won three Olivier Awards, including Best Play, and Lithgow took home a Tony for Best Actor in a Play for the role. You might know him from Killers of the Flower Moon and The Crown, but here he's taking on one of the most complicated figures in children's literature at a moment when his public image was under serious pressure.
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The venue is Gloucester Guildhall on Eastgate Street, the historic hall built in 1890 on the site of Sir Thomas Rich's Blue Coat School. It was refurbished between 1985 and 1988 into 'The County's Liveliest Venue', and since then it's hosted the likes of Radiohead, Muse, Lily Allen, and Frankie Boyle. Tickets are £16.25 for adults and £13.50 for concessions, with the evening showing on Thursday 19 November starting at 7pm and the matinee on Sunday 22 November at 2:30pm.
