Giant West End Reviews

Always sophisticated, Rosenblatt’s writing is the real star of the show. His ideas burst at the seams, simultaneously intricate and straightforward. He writes a capricious man with a ferocious attitude and very prone to flattery. Lithgow introduces...

Always sophisticated, Rosenblatt’s writing is the real star of the show. His ideas burst at the seams, simultaneously intricate and straightforward. He writes a capricious man with a ferocious attitude and very prone to flattery. Lithgow introduces a man of great stature (both figuratively and literally: he towers over everybody at 6’4” with sparse tufts of hair sticking up, making him even taller) who speaks in riddles, charming in his literary devices and colourful descriptions. The renovating process is “the apocalypse” and Jewish people are “that lot”.

I admired director-turned-author Mark Rosenblatt’s playwriting debut upon its Royal Court premiere last autumn. But I wasn’t prepared for the seismic jolt that Nicholas Hytner’s production now delivers. The drama, set 40 years ago but blisterin...

I admired director-turned-author Mark Rosenblatt’s playwriting debut upon its Royal Court premiere last autumn. But I wasn’t prepared for the seismic jolt that Nicholas Hytner’s production now delivers. The drama, set 40 years ago but blisteringly topical to our times now, has been seasoned by the deepening of John Lithgow’s altogether astonishing performance as Roald Dahl and the terrific addition to the cast of the American actress Aya Cash, taking over from Romola Garai as an adversary of considerable proportions and power.

Nicholas Hytner’s immaculately paced production arrives at the Harold Pinter Theatre trailing a clutch of Olivier awards, and with the American actor John Lithgow reprising his incandescent portrayal of children’s author Roald Dahl as an unforget...

Nicholas Hytner’s immaculately paced production arrives at the Harold Pinter Theatre trailing a clutch of Olivier awards, and with the American actor John Lithgow reprising his incandescent portrayal of children’s author Roald Dahl as an unforgettable mixture of wit, charm, bully and unfiltered antisemite. With the war in Gaza still making news, Rosenblatt’s study could hardly be more timely. If the TV drama Adolescence did a solid job of catching the zeitgeist, Giant offers an even more incisive example of writing that holds a mirror up to the way we live now.

We may admire Stone’s flinty resolve (American actress Aya Cash taking over, capably, from Romola Garai), but she’s still inclined to separate the artist from his art in deference to her learning disabled son’s reading needs, her stance complic...

We may admire Stone’s flinty resolve (American actress Aya Cash taking over, capably, from Romola Garai), but she’s still inclined to separate the artist from his art in deference to her learning disabled son’s reading needs, her stance complicated further by Dahl’s compassion for the boy, and for her. And Lithgow’s multi-faceted portrait keeps our sympathies shifting to the unpalatable end: his insouciance and incorrigible wit beguiling, his humanitarian concern persuasive, his prejudice bound up with his self-sabotaging personality type. Rachael Stirling remains pitch-perfect as his warily, almost wearily supportive partner Felicity, with Tessa Bonham Jones and Richard Hope completing the cast as the astute house-help and bluntly sage handyman.

Yes it’s lots of people arguing in a drawing room and god knows the West End has had its fun with plays like those. But something sets it apart, which is Rosenblatt’s willingness to go there. ‘Are you Jewish?’ Dahl asks Stone barely a minute ...

Yes it’s lots of people arguing in a drawing room and god knows the West End has had its fun with plays like those. But something sets it apart, which is Rosenblatt’s willingness to go there. ‘Are you Jewish?’ Dahl asks Stone barely a minute after they meet. From there it’s fireworks, it’s daggers drawn, Dahl a big complex beast either made bearlike by deep compassion for oppressed, injusticed people, or a big child who doesn’t know how to regulate his feelings, so instead throws antisemitic tantrums. And actually the familiarity of the old-fashioned form then butts up against its daring intent, like the play is waiting for the tension and conflict that ripples throughout the audience as some of the lines are spat out, the seizing of shock, the awkwardness, outrage and discomfort.