John Leader to lead as The BFG at The RSC
Written by Penny for Theatre and Tonic.
Lead casting has been announced for a new adaptation of Roald Dahl’s BFG, adapted by Tom Wells and produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Chichester Festival Theatre and the Roald Dahl Story Company.
John Leader is the actor who will step into the over-sized shoes of Dahl’s beloved character.
To celebrate the announcement, I went along to the Roald Dahl Story Company HQ to enjoy a glass of whizpopping Frobscottle (!) and find out all about this magical new show.
Generations of children have grown up on the stories of Roald Dahl. The beloved author has created fictional worlds featuring ordinary children thrown into extraordinary situations – usually with rather macabre overtones. He has created some memorable villains – from Matilda’s terrifying Miss Trunchball to the Grand High Witch – as well as everyday heroes like young Charlie Bucket. Perhaps Dahl’s most unlikely hero is the BFG, a 24 foot Giant who travels into London under cover of darkness and is accidentally seen by a young orphan called Sophie, resulting in her life taking a very dramatic turn.
Daniel Evans, Co-Artistic Director of the RSC, is directing The BFG, and he introduced this exciting new adaptation, one that has been in development for seven years, saying:
“I’ve known the story since I was a kid and was enthralled by it then and actually as I’ve got older I’ve seen much more in it. It offers a massive challenge for a creative team as every single prop has either lights or smoke or sound and you’ve got to put dreams on stage! Our creative team includes the illusionist Chris Fisher, who worked on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. We’ve had to create a cave full of jars holding dreams that keep changing and we see some being mixed in the show. We’ve had lots of fun with all that and hope that by the end we all feel like we’re actually experiencing the dreams and our imaginations are completely unlocked!”
He went on to talk about one of the show’s key themes:
A theme that runs through the novel is that size and power do not always go together. We tend to think big things are powerful and little things are squashable. So, if you’re an 8-year-old orphan girl you might not have much power, but it turns out that if you key into your imagination, you can save all the children of the world! You might assume a giant is powerful and dangerous but with human connection and friendship you realise he’s friendly and you can form a team with him. You can be a Queen, hold the highest seat of power in the land but still feel trapped within your palace.
It’s the alliance between these three - the Queen the (Big Friendly) Giant and Sophie the orphan - that forms the action trio of the piece. Together they each unlock their imaginations, which is the key in most Dahl stories.
So we have experimented with how we can change scale. As the perception of power changes so does the size. Hopefully it’s going to be a production where things grow and diminish in size according to perception”.
Daniel then introduced John Leader, who is the actor bringing the BFG to life, absolutely singing his praises, saying:
“We needed someone with immense warmth, humility and vulnerability and huge imagination. I’d seen John on stage and so I knew about his physical agility and mental imagination, and when we met to talk about it and read through, it was just glorious!”
John talked about his love for the story:
“I have really vivid memories of it. My sister used to read to me every night until I went to sleep, reading the books she loved. I remember BFG being one and I remember the really big moments: all the running and creating the dreams!”
And, as a Birmingham boy, John talked about how much it means to be returning to the RSC:
“I remember growing up in Birmingham, going to college in Stratford and looking at the RSC and thinking that it was never a world that I’d be a part of. The fact that now I’m RETURNING to the RSC is a huge privilege, and that I’m getting to play this role there is an even bigger privilege. To do it in Birmingham, in the Midlands, feels really special. If 8-year-old John Leader went to the RSC to watch the BFG and saw me on stage he’d find that hugely inspiring, so there’s a part of me that is doing it for the younger version of me who’d love to have seen that!”
Dahl created a whole new language for the BFG, Gobblefunk, with his titular character twisting his words and creating some new ones that are bound to both delight audiences and prove a challenge for the actors who need to learn this topsy turvy language! I asked John how he’s getting to grips with it:
“What an absolute joy, I love a challenge, and I think the language is a joyous challenge, there’s so much to play with. I’m really looking forward to it, it’s not a challenge, it’s an opportunity!
The joy with children is they don’t question it. Even if they don’t fully understand the words, they get the piece that they need. Thinking about my daughter, I started reading it to her and there is no question, she’s fully IN! The joy for us adults is tuning into our imaginations again and taking the lead from young people. Childhood imagination is a powerful thing”.
So there you have it. Scale. Power. Magic. Dreams. And a whole lot of imagination! This “human bean” can’t wait to see the BFG’s story brought to life!
The BFG runs for a winter season at the RSC from 25th November 2025 to 31st January 2026 and then at the Chichester Festival Theatre from 16th March to 12th April 2026.
