Task 4 The Witches

  Task 4

 Researching the man behind it all, Roald Dahl. 

Born in Llandaff, Wales, on 13th September 1916 to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg, Dahl was named after Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian who had been the first man to reach the South Pole just four years earlier. After his father's and elder sisters passing, his mother wanted the best for him early on, being that he was now the only living child she had, she sent him to boarding school, first to St Peter's, Weston-super-Mare; then, in 1929, to Repton, where bizarre happenings would be recalled of in his book, Boy: Tales of Childhood. Pupils at Repton were invited to trial chocolate bars, a memory that stayed with Dahl throughout his life, inspiring his famous book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As Roald Dahl grew older, his lust for travel took him first to Canada, then to East Africa, where he worked for an oil company until the outbreak of World War Two. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force when he was 23. In September 1940, Dahl received severe injuries to his head, nose and back when his plane crash-landed in the Western Desert. After six months recovering from his injuries in Alexandria, he returned to action, taking part in The Battle of Athens. Later, after a posting to Washington, he supplied intelligence to MI6. In 1953, he married an American actress, Patricia Neal, which he had 5 kids with. After 30 years, they divorced, before he married Felicity Crosland, who furthered Roald's success through his charity and museum. In the early 1980s, he published The Twits, Revolting Rhymes, The BFG and The Witches. There followed two autobiographical books: Boy, in 1984 and Going Solo, in 1986. Matilda was published in 1988, Esio Trot in 1990, and finally, in 1991, came the posthumous delight of The Minpins. Roald Dahl died on 23 November 1990, aged 74. He was buried in the parish church of St Peter and St Paul in Great Missenden - the Buckinghamshire village where today The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre continues his extraordinary mission to amaze, thrill and inspire generations of children and parents alike.

 (Most information here was located on Roald Dahl's official website: https://www.roalddahl.com/home)

The Witches tells the story of a young boy and his Norwegian grandmother as they battle against England's child-hating witches. It continues to feature in lists dedicated to the scariest children's books more than 30 years after it was first published. When he was a child himself, Roald Dahl used to spend every summer holiday with his family in Norway, where he was inspired by bedtime stories of witches and magic. He wrote about these holidays in Boy: Tales of Childhood. It is also said that the grandmother in The Witches was partially inspired by Roald's own mother. Roald dedicated the book to his wife, Felicity. 

A film version of the story, starring Angelica Huston as The Grand High Witch, was released in 1990. The main difference between the film and the original story is the ending - in the book, there is no spell cast to change the boy's state back to what it was before the witches found him. The film also gives its main character the name Luke, whereas in the book we don't find out the name of either the boy nor his grandmother. In 1983, the year it was published, The Witches won three awards: The New York Times Outstanding Books Award, The Federation of Children's Book Groups Award and The Whitbread Award.

The Witches has been made into a book, a play and two movies. The book winning several awards, the play getting many wonderful reviews, such as "Cracking Delight" From The Guardian, or "The Witches is a total delight" from Evening Standard. The Play was adapted by David Wood, the 1990 movie being directed by Nicolas Roeg and the 2020 movie being directed by Robert Zemeckis. 

"The play offers many opportunities for illusions and inventive puppetry. Humour is provided by the vulgar Jenkins family, whose son, Bruno, also becomes a mouse.

David Wood writes: We had great fun with this play. I particularly relish the memory of our regular recruitment of fifteen local amateur actresses, who joined the professional cast of the play the witches. Their contribution to the realisation of this exciting story was considerable.

Susie Caulcutt, the designer, and Paul Kieve, our illusionist, combined forces to make all the magic happen naturally and logically within the settings. Peter Pontzen’s sinister, yet tuneful, music score effectively punctuated and helped to progress the action."

The Original Production of The Witches Play employed ten actors, plus fifteen extra women playing as witches.

However, just as recent as last year, a new The Witches movie came out, starring Anne Hathaway as The Grand High Witch, which made use of CGI compared to the 1990's version which made use of Practical Effects.