Matilda: The Musical

In the state sector world of teaching there are few perks. Boardroom dealmakers don’t put on a Christmas do for you; a summer send-off involves ‘bringing a dish’ and break time milk is credited to staff bank accounts. Sure, you get a lot of holiday, but much of that is spent scrabbling under the sofa for your mortgage repayments. There is one perk though to being a teacher: school trips. Yes, it involves children, which is a disappointment. On the plus side though, you get to see productions for nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The parent 'respite tax' for a night off is a theatre ticket for this guy (pointing at myself). Seems like a fair deal. So while you parents have your fun while the kids are out, turning your homes into queasy speakeasy swingers clubs, I'm out watching great art.

This week I went to see Matilda: The Musical, which I’ve wanted to see for ages. The reason for this is two-fold: the first is Roald Dahl. As a child my mum would sit beside mine and my brother's bunk and read his stories to us. In my first year as a teacher I taught Dahl’s early years memoir, Boy, and seeing the joy it brought children made me nostalgic for the joy he brought me. The second is Tim Minchin. Minchin, a musical-comedian, is the lyricist behind the musical. A few years ago The Girl and I went to The Old Vic to see his take on Groundhog Day; the songs were stunning in both brains and accessibility. 

Roald Dahl dressed as Bobby Charlton.

In stand-up circles musical-comedians are often derided: often they choose well-known songs, barely re-working the lyrics, which culminate in some Pavlov’s dog noodling guaranteed to raise applause. Minchin is nothing like this. Ironically for a virtuosic pianist, he doesn’t think in black and white. His songs are imbued with a variety of hues: he can do melancholic, nostalgic, romantic, satirical and edgy. His piano isn’t a punch-line prop, but a background set-up for jokes to gestate. 

I was dead excited about going.

Matilda begins with ‘Miracle,’ a ‘homage’ to the miracle of birth. The inverted commas because Matilda’s parents aren’t so happy with their arrival. For Mrs Wormwood it’s an inconvenience: she should be at a dance championship getting 10’s from judges, as opposed to judgement from doctors for maternal indifference. For Mr Wormwood it’s a swindle, a swizz, "where is its ‘thingy?" after all. I mean, he’s heard of this liability being taken with other parents before, but for him, a self-made man of used cars, shouldn’t he be leaving the forecourt with a man made of his own? As other children recall their parents tributes, (‘My daddy says I'm his special little guy. I am a princess, And I am a prince. Mum says I'm an angel sent down from the sky,’) a now grown Matilda laments,

My mummy says I'm a lousy little worm. My daddy says I'm a bore. My mummy says I'm a jumped-up little germ, That kids like me should be against the law, My daddy says I should learn to shut my pie hole. No one likes a smart-mouthed girl like me. Mum says I'm a good case for population control. Dad says I should watch more TV.

(Miracle, Matilda: The Musical)

The fact this is delivered with a straight bat makes it even more hilarious. I know it’s a cheap trick but are there many funnier things than putting adult ideas – in this case sterilisation – into a child’s mouth? It isn’t just the lyrics that are well juxtaposed, but the play script by Dennis Kelly too. When Mr Wormwood sees his daughter reading, he pronounces, “That’s not normal for a five-year-old. I think she might be an idiot.” Cut to Matilda: “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Matilda isn’t just reading; she’s inhaling the great works of literature. She isn’t an idiot, but a genius. Her TV-loving family are the cartoon catchphrases to her layered elegance. Fortunately, she finds refuge in the library.

The library scenes are a Kelly conception rather than a Dahl one. Like Hamlet has a play within a play, Kelly’s Matilda has a story within a story. An argument between her mother and father gets Matilda thinking. Her dad defines himself as an 'escapologist' for getting his wife out of financial scrapes; her mum replies how she ‘must be an acrobat,’ given how she maintains the house. (“Dinners don’t microwave themselves, you know!”) Hearing two tremendously dull people use circus language is the inspiration needed to make Matilda's brain go light bulb. On entering the library, it’s clear she is pub regular at the prose joint. The librarian asks Matilda for a story. The one she tells is of an escapologist and an acrobat; a couple who live and work in trust, catching one another from falling, soaring together to new heights. This is the stuff of painful wish-fulfilment: Matilda wants her parents to act in poetry, not argue in graffiti. Throughout the musical we come back to Matilda in the library, adding chapters to her story, inspired by earlier events, prefiguring later ones. The handling of this magical realism is beautifully conceived with shadow puppetry utilised to create the carnival scene.

Matilda tells her story.

Those of you who are still reading this (who are you people?) will perhaps be wondering when I’m going to bring up Miss Trunchbull. Even more than Matilda, she is the take-away character of the story. Pam Ferris’ rendering of her is marvellous in the film version scaring children worldwide. In the musical she possesses the same dictatorial threat. The Wormwords see her as the Bookfinder General, one that will rip literature from their daughter’s brain, instilling instead the values of fact and discipline. She'll be the educative osteopath that'll straighten their daughter out. 

In going to school Matilda and the other early learners are greeted by the bigger boys and girls. They are told in no uncertain terms that what they’re entering is not the palace of wisdom, but a gothic prison. The ‘School Song’ they sing is a work of wonder – a wonder that I missed. Because I’m short-sighted, dim-witted and tin-eared, I didn’t pick up on the genius of the song. I noticed letters were being put in the school gates but I didn’t get they corresponded to the letter being referenced in the song. It wasn’t until I got home and The Girl said, “How good is that alphabet song?” that I realised what I had missed. She told me that each line references a letter in the alphabet, and played back the song to illustrate.

Here it is:

And so you think you're A-ble
To survive this mess by Being a prince or a princess.
You will soon (C) see there's no escaping trageDy. 
And Even if you put in heaps of eFfort, 
You're just wasting enerGy, 
'Cause your life as you know it is "aitcH"-ent history. 
I have suffered in this Jail, I've been trapped inside this (K) cage for ages, 
This living 'eLl. But if I try I can remeMber,
(School Song, Matilda: The Musical)

It makes you appreciate why Minchin was the one they turned to when looking for a lyricist. He has a preternatural talent for words, just as Matilda does. And just as Matilda is understood better by her own peers than adults, so it appears does Minchin. Whilst all the children clapped wildly in unison as each letter was put down, I thought, “Yeah, it’s good, but it’s hardly the best song.” On reflection I’ve learnt that sometimes children know best.

My favourite song though is the Act Two opener ‘When I Grow Up.’ A few months ago I saw Minchin perform it on Front Row, BBC2’s flagship culture show that has the ratings of the dodo population. I was spellbound by the performance. You would be hard-pressed to find a song that articulates better 'the child experience.' Frequently as a child you feel powerless. You’re forced to endure the fallout of adult conflict. Kept in the dark about the mysteries of death and divorce. Told to keep your why’s and wherefore’s to yourself. It’s no wonder that some children want to grow up. To take control of their own lives and destinies. Minchin’s song doesn’t quite deal in this dark material, but it’s a painful reminder that childhood isn’t all cartwheels and bottle rockets. For those like me who were blessed with a wonderful childhood, it’s melancholic, as it makes you wonder why a child would wish those years away. It’s a staggering work of beauty.

So in a story about the fecklessness of parents, I want to say ‘thank you parents.’ It’s because of you that I got to see Matilda: The Musical free of charge. Yes, the teachers lot may not always be the proverbial land of Miss Honey, but when you get to see wonderful productions it’s not all (Trunch)bull either.

Matilda: The Musical is on tour now.