Fans of Roald Dahl are in for a theatrical treat at The Garage in Norwich this week. Arts correspondent Emma Knights finds out more.
Roald Dahl classic James and the Giant Peach is jumping out of the storybook and onto the stage at The Garage in Norwich this week.
Norwich-based Moss Banks Productions is performing the fantastical tale which looks at what happens when James Henry Trotter's parents are eaten by an escaped rhinoceros, and he is sent to live with his two repulsive aunts, Sponge and Spiker.
James dreams of the time he spent with his parents, when he was happy, and then the strangest of things happens - a huge peach growing in his aunts' back garden takes James and a group of very special insects on an enormous adventure.
Alexander Banks, the show's director and the creative director of Moss Banks Productions, said it was great fun and also a great challenge putting on a stage version of the famous story enjoyed by generations and penned in 1961 by one of the world's most-loved writers.
'It is Roald Dahl's biggest adventure and it's a big task to bring it to the stage. It's more exciting that anything else we have ever done,' he said.
'It's a story that I read as a boy and it was one of my favourite Roald Dahl stories alongside Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - just the idea of a giant peach being hoisted in the air by hundreds of seagulls is magical!'
Roald Dahl's story, adapted by David Wood, is being performed by a cast 10, with 12-year-old Ted Macdonald playing the title role of James.
A grasshopper, a spider, an earthworm and a centipede are also among the kaleidoscope of characters taking to the stage alongside, of course, a giant peach which Mr Banks said measures five metres high.
'It's going to be really amazing to watch!' he said.
The show opens at The Garage on Wednesday and runs until Friday.
Previous performances by Moss Banks Productions have included Charles Dickens' festive tale A Christmas Carol at Norwich's St John Maddermarket Church and the Victorian thriller Gaslight at the Maddermarket Theatre.
Moss Banks Productions is performing James and the Giant Peach at The Garage, in Norwich, from Wednesday to Friday this week at 7.30pm each night.
Tickets £12-£15. For more information and to book tickets, visit www.mossbanks.co.uk/james or call 01603 598646.
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