James and the Giant Peach Gordon Craig Review
James and the Giant Peach
Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage
16-20 April 2014
Reviewed by Zoey Caldwell
On the journey to the theatre my 8 year old son wondered how on earth the Giant Peach appear on stage and what the insects would look like. Both of us fans of Roald Dahl we were really excited to see how the book had been adapted to stage.
It was our first visit to The Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage, it is a huge building that hosts amongst other leisure a gym as well as the theatre. The box office was very easy to locate as it is opposite the entrance. There is a sweet cart, and cafe in the lobby. The theatre is to the rear, the bar area and cloakroom, toilets are here too. Every member of staff that we encountered were polite and well turned out.
Our seats were fantastic and the aisles had plenty of leg room. The show starts off in New York with a tour guide and tourists, we are taken to Central Park and a house made of a peach stone. It isn’t long until we are introduced to the star of the show James, played by Ryan Owen. One by one he brings out his wonderful friends that share his unusual home. Musical Old Green Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybird, the very curvy Miss Spider, and the blind earthworm each with their very own unique “vocation” explained in song: Experts in our field.
The story of how James ended up in New York with all the insects starts to be explained. James is orphaned and sent to live with 2 aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. Awful ladies that are on a level par with the ugly sisters in Cinderella, but with a bad case of flatulence. Misguided at their beauty they relish on making poor James‘s life a misery. Aunt Sponge (Louisa Roberts) and Aunt Spiker (Olivia Holland-Rose) are excellent entertainment. A terrible twosome to James but their performances were fantastic! Mason was fascinated by Aunt Sponge’s unsightly eyebrows!
James is visited by an old man who gives him a bag of marvellous things, to transform his life. James trips and the bag is emptied onto an old tree… this is where the magic begins.
A juicy ripe peach appears and grows rapidly the greed and nastiness of the Aunts is again prevalent, poor James locked away whilst they profit from the magic peach. Poor James is left to clear away from the tourists, and so he becomes across the insects that had been transformed by the marvellous things James dropped.
We are then taken on the journey that takes James to America with adventures along the way. We were gripped by the performances of all the cast. The costumes and stage sets were fantastic. We came out singing James and the Giant Peach, which is rather an infectious tune! The one thing both my son and I commented on was how quickly it was finished… just shows that time flies when you are having fun and thanks to Roald Dahl’s imagination brought to life by David Wood, that certainly is what we had! Family, bonding and entertainment, Fabulous.
Rating: 5/5 
Tickets cost £12.50 (children under 8), £15 (adults) and £47 (family of 4).
For more information or to book tickets click here or call the box office on 01438 363200.
Stevenage Arts & Leisure Centre, Lytton Way, Stevenage, Herts, SG1 1LZ | 01438 363200
