Mark Rosenblatt’s Olivier Award winning play transfers from the Royal Court Theatre to the West End.
Broadway World: ***** “Hytner enhances the hypnotic rhythm of the script by orchestrating his cast to perfection. No pause is too long, no comeback is too quick. However, where the first act is a pressure cooker of sumptuous turns of phrase and passionate invectives, the second cools down and shows Dahl in all his contradictions. A slower and more measured pace allows to concede with the terrible conflation of justice and bigotry that exists in Dahl, how language can bring so much joy and incite so much shock and anger.”
London Theatre.co.uk: ***** “The play finds comedy amidst psychic carnage, compassion where lesser talents would locate only disdain. “Who are you?” this mighty play asks near its close, and that most basic question about humankind is sure to haunt all of us as we make our way home.”
Time Out: ***** “Rosenblatt uses the great giant of children’s books and makes a very grown up play. Aided by Hytner’s crystalline production, where humour is never many lines away, he demands that these arguments play out, stink and vitriol and all, I guess in the hope that we can stop arguing them on repeat for the next forty years.”
The Telegraph: ***** “Having previously sold out at the Royal Court, this drama – about the anti-Semitism storm that engulfed Dahl in 1983 – is the play to see.”
The Standard: ***** “This is a terrific piece of work all round, that’s already been showered with Olivier and Critic’s Circle awards. Lithgow’s tremendous performance will loom large in the memory for a long time.”
Jonathan Baz Reviews: *** “Giant offers quite possibly the finest acting in town, matched only by a premise that is as deeply flawed.”
The Reviews Hub: **** 1/2 “And with contemporary children’s authors also stepping publicly into highly politicised debates, Rosenblatt’s play feels even more timely than it did last autumn – perhaps here too the librarians will decide what happens next.”
City AM: **** “If it is occasionally meandering and ever-so slightly underpowered, it is nonetheless a revelatory character study: Dahl wasn’t who we thought he was, but despite his immensely hateful opinions, Rosenthall has made Dahl believable. Horridly contradictory, but palpably real.”
The Stage: **** “John Lithgow stars as Roald Dahl in an electrifying mix of fact and fiction.”
Giant continues to play at the Harold Pinter Theatre until the 2nd August.