Dennis Kelly

You know, it's not not all musicals, but the bad ones, you know.

and I think they wanted to avoid that.

So we did it that way round.

And when they asked me to do it, at first I thought, you've just got the wrong bloke.

But then I thought about it, and a lot of my early stuff had been quite sort of crazy and mad and big.

And I thought, actually, I think I'll give this a go.

I think this is really interesting.

And the chance to sort of

you know be paddling around in the world of Roald Dahl was quite you know from where I grew up that was an amazing opportunity really so I just grabbed it.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I think in the first draft, I had a bit too much fun with the Trunchbull because she's funny.

You know, she's a funny, dark, twisted character.

And I love writing Trunchbull.

Every so often I'm asked to write

like a a little thing like i write reports that they throw paper darts in in the um at the end of the show and i but there are little school reports on them and i write those just because i have fun writing trunchbull's voice you know because she's just rude about everyone she's really disgustingly rude about kids and there's nothing more funny than being disgustingly rude about kids and actually but i remember i'd probably had a bit too much fun she went a bit too pantomime

And Lissy, Roald Dahl's widow, gave me one note and she just sort of whispered in my ear, you must remember she's a murderer.

I love it.

It was a real sort of slap, but it was one of the best notes I had.

You know, if you keep hold of that, then you've got something to play with.

Yeah.