Matilda The Musical, Cambridge Theatre

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Is this thing on…?

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…ah, there you are. Good. Yes, it’s been a little while since any reviews appeared here, but that’s because it’s been a little while since I’ve been to the theatre. What can I say? Send me tickets to things and I’ll write about them.

In the meantime I can promise to write a review at least once a year, because once a year I take my god-daughter to a show as part of her Christmas present, and this year that show was Matilda, which happily has just opened in the West End. We actually went en famille, because we decided that even the younger brother might enjoy it, which he duly did. I think it would be hard to find a demographic to whom it wouldn’t appeal, because – like all of Roald Dahl’s children’s books – the story is dark and funny and exciting, but Tim Minchin’s songs are so big-hearted and good-natured that you can’t help but smile all the way through them.

Whether for reasons of privacy or nerves or something else, the website doesn’t show pictures of the children, so I’m not entirely sure which Matilda we saw, but she was very good – not at all stage schooly, which is quite often a problem with children in musicals – and with a sense of physical comedy that I’ve rarely seen in an adult, let alone in an eleven-year-old (probably). Carrying a show this bombastic and exuberant is a big task, but she pulled it off with relish and was lovely to watch throughout.

The other star of the show is Bertie Carvel as Miss Trunchbull. In the book, and in the 1996 Danny Devito film (which is excellent, and if you haven’t seen it you should rent it now), Miss Trunchbull is properly, unrelentingly, terrifying. For the musical version, someone has realised that characters in musicals can either sing or be scary (would Oliver Reed have made such an intimidating Bill Sykes if he’d bellowed out “My Name” in the film?), and sensibly opted for the former. Carvel’s physical performance is unique and mesmerising and extraordinary, but it’s not frightening. Which is fine: apart from anything else, there are quite a lot of children in the audience, and the tickets are very expensive, so you don’t want them hiding under their seats for half of the show.

Paul Kaye and Josie Walker are also excellent as Matilda’s parents in what is a true ensemble piece, some of the highlights coming in the big musical numbers which don’t have a great deal to do with the plot, but which jolly the thing along and provide the sorts of thrills you need when you take children to the theatre. My only slight problem was that in places the lyrics weren’t quite audible, because they were fast and clever and lots of people were singing at once. It’s a problem that I also sometimes have with Sondheim, and if you’re going to be compared to a songwriter, it might as well be him, so it’s not a real gripe. Tim Minchin is above all a happy comedian (there aren’t many, although I got into a fight on the internet when I said that recently), and that shines through in his songs, which are sweet and funny and heartwarming.

It’s not often that a new musical comes along that seems to be everything a musical should be – Wicked is the closest thing we’ve had recently, but I’ve never been quite able to fall in love with Wicked. I fell in love with Matilda the minute it started, and if you sent me a ticket I’d go and see it again tomorrow.

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