24ft BFG ready to terrorise children
Aug 1 2008 By John Slim
WORD has it that by the time the Big Friendly Giant, known to his intimates as BFG, arrives at Hall Green Little Theatre, he will be 24ft high.
Imagination boggles a bit, but that's what they tell me.
I have only seen this David Wood adaptation of the Roald Dahl story once.
That was with an audience of intermittently terrified schoolgirls who had an afternoon of panicking, screaming and knickerwetting while I tried to concentrate on the plot.
And that was in the face of a BFG who was nowhere near 24ft tall - though he did keep wandering into the auditorium - so heaven knows what will be the result of the production that is launched at Hall Green next Friday.
A company of eight play about 30 characters as well as being involved in manipulating the puppets that are so important.
The set has been heralded as colourful and ingenious. It is the work of graduate Tanya Felts, a recent addition to HGLT.
She started her career very early in Lincolnshire, and her design experience has included t he large-scale carnival puppets for Spalding's Annual Flower Parade.
She will soon be starting on work for a tour of Jungle Book by the Birmingham Stage Company.
The BFG (Big Friendly Giant), directed by Roy Palmer, will run until August 16. n GUYS and Dolls has been off the amateur schedule until recently, but Josef Weinberger is now open to applications for the show, which must be staged before May 23, 2009.
There are other restrictions. Among them, all venues must seat fewer than 500 and must not be within 25 miles of major cities - and there must be no national media adver tising and no national reviewers.
It tends to beg the question: how many venues are not within 25 miles of a major city?
Weinberger has also released Boogie Nights for amateur production.
The show enjoyed five national sell-out tours, a run in London's West End and prompted people to dust down their flares and hotpants from Europe to the USA and New Zealand.
* The singing and dancing West Side Story workshop that Wolverhampton Musical Comedy Company had planned for Sunday, August 10, has had to be postponed u ntil Tuesday, September 9, at Penn United Reformed Church hall, Penn Road, Wolverhampton.
"Unforeseen circumstances" are blamed.
Applications relat ing to the revised date should be made to Christine Duff Cole on 01902 655 741.
The show towards which the workshop is directed will be at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, from March 17-21. n THE Phoenix Players, of Stratford-upon-Avon, will hold auditions at 8pm on Monday for Sinbad the Sailor, to be presented at the Stratford Civic Hall in January.
They will be at the Phoenix Studio, behind The Tramway pub on Shipston Road, Stratford-upon-Avon.
More information is available from Eric Smith on 01789 551754 or by email at frederick_smith@sky.com
