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We salute her for proving how big brains and a good heart can win out in the end.

Aided and abetted by a bit of convenient magic which even she can't understand. And without which, she's toast.

Still, the show is fantastic: another RSC musical which fully deserves (like Les Mis) a 25-year run.

Definitely one of the best bits of theatre I've ever seen. Hasn't the book always been rather well-known though?

Aided and abetted by a bit of convenient magic which even she can't understand. And without which, she's toast.

I was thinking the same. It does undermine the premise a bit here. Maybe if Matilda had to use big brains and a good heart against an opponent who possessed a similar power, it would have come out more like the editorial imagines.

But that is not the kind of story Dahl wanted to write, and that is not how it came out. Dahl no doubt apologizes humbly to over-enthusiastic feminist analysts from beyond the grave.

Not a patch on Fantastic Mister Fox.

Aided and abetted by a bit of convenient magic which even she can't understand. And without which, she's toast.

Can we not say that about every David and Goliath story? Small underdog overcome gigantic terrifying bully with gumption, smarts and inexplicable luck? Matilda just does it in style ' Agatha, this is Magnus. Give my Jenny back her house. If you don't I will get you. I will get you, like you got me. I'm watching you Agatha'!

As a wee girl I desperately wanted to be Matilda, I spent hours staring at the duster trying to get it to move. Although I did view every locked cupboard in my primary school with an air of suspicion lest it house The Chokey.

What about Sophie in the BFG? My kids - a boy and a girl - read Roald Dahl with equal relish. So how about just celebrating a great kids' author and not making this about the sexes?

Dahl cannon

This typo/uninentinal would probably fit well in one of Dahl's books considering all the goings on, often quite exploseive. (Wasn't there one were someone got fired out of a cannon or am I imagining it?)

Anyway, Matilda was one of my fave Dahl books. That spirit of learning at that age, I had it too, although certainly not to the same extent and level of intelligence.

I was just thinking about the book the other day when I got a kids birthday party cake for £1 from a supermarket because it was near sell by. I remembered the challenge the greedy kid has to try and eat a big cake in one go. I managed it all myself in 48 hours, which is still quite an acheivement!!

Anyway, I will now make sure to read all the other works of Roald Dahl I haven't read and re-read the ones I have

We salute her for proving how big brains and a good heart can win out in the end.

However, she didn't prove that. Feminism: grasping at strawmen.

Matilda would have hated to have been brought up by a feminist. No more floral print frocks. No more doll's tea parties. Just Agatha Trunchbull and being as good as a man at shot put.

Hermione Granger is no feminist icon.

She had her moments in the early books but then she became screaming arm candy.

Yet this rare leading female in the Dahl cannon (sic) once seemed destined to remain in the shadow of bigger creations – like Harry Potter's Hermione, being demoted to the second fictional league, despite (or maybe even because of) her superlative competence.

Any competent female assistant referee would be able to tell this "editor" that one may be relegated to a second division, not demoted to a second league. Unless, somehow, she meant the fictional league just before the other 9,998.

We salute her for proving how big brains and a good heart can win out in the end.

How exactly does a fictional character prove anything?

How exactly does a fictional character prove anything?

God knows. ;-)

....like Harry Potter's Hermione, being demoted to the second fictional league, despite (or maybe even because of) her superlative competence.

Or was the clue as to the lead character given in the title?

In scorn of.... THe Guardian

As children the fact BFG and Matilda had a girl lead and Charlie and Chocolate factory and Danny Champion of the world a a boy went completely over most kids heads but now they make it into a gender issue.

Bloody tragic. In an article disguised as building up women it is really an article telling them they are victims. Identity politics 101. The worst aspect of this is that there is nothing more disempowering than a victims complex.

Definitely one of the best bits of theatre I've ever seen. Hasn't the book always been rather well-known though?

My thoughts exactly. This really is bloody ridiculous. Anyone who's a fan of Dahl knows Matilda's one of his better titles, following the classic Dahl theme of clever underlings get their revenge on dreadful adults. What, so the musical wins an award and now people are recognising that the book is great? Honestly, where have you lot been for the last two decades?

Oh, and a note on that 'rare female lead' thing. Matilda lives in a mysoginist world but the sexism she encounters comes as much from her mother's superficiality as it does from her father's dismissal of 'long stocking girls'. Matilda's a child in need of help but it's nothing to do with her being a girl. Gender really shouldn't be an issue here and it was clumsy of the Guardian to make it so.

... and there was the film. It was, I think, very good. Even more remarkable, its child star went on to become a normal human being. If there's some sort of 'lesson' to be derived from Dahl's fictions, it might be in there somewhere.

He is never having read the BFG - either his head is full of snozcumber or he is swizzfiggling ...

I was thinking the same. It does undermine the premise a bit here. Maybe if Matilda had to use big brains and a good heart against an opponent who possessed a similar power, it would have come out more like the editorial imagines.

But that is not the kind of story Dahl wanted to write, and that is not how it came out. Dahl no doubt apologizes humbly to over-enthusiastic feminist analysts from beyond the grave.

It doesn't undermine the premise at all. Matlida's powers aren't a result of accidentally blundering into a radioactive spider, they're a result of her incredible brain power (developed primarily through reading) and her lack of opportunity to use them at school.

I've had no end of conversations with mothers of little girls who are looking for children's books with little girls as the protagonists. They're hard to find and "Matilda" fits the bill. Whether Dahl intended her as a feminist hero is besides the point. The fact that she's a central female character in a book that can be enjoyed by girls and boys is enough in itself.

I have known several feminists who were into floral frocks and dolls. But you are right: Dahl should not be so unkindly accused of having progressive ideals. If there is a feminist in 'Matilda', it is Trunchbull. Elsewhere in the oeuvre, he paints them as child-devouring witches. I don't think he can be conscripted for the cause.

Isn't the titular BFG as much the hero of the BFG as Sophie?

Anyway. Matilda's sort of interesting, because it's not really about the battle of the sexes at all. IIRC, the main character conflict - Matilda vs Trenchbull is focused on two women. I always viewed it as a nerdy fantasy, instead of a feminist statement. If only reading gave you super powers!

Also my insane theory is that Carrie is a sequel to Matilda.

It's a story. Matilda didn't exist. That Matilda's persona acts in a certain way has no proof or message to someone who acts in a different way.

she rebelled against the turkey hat

As you say, feminists are not anti-frocks or anti-dolls, so long as little girls know they are allowed to wear jeans and like army tanks as well if they wish.

But Trunchbull is no more a feminist than Miss Honey or Matilda herself. The latter two characters are trying to fight an oppressive lifestyle so arguably they fit more into the mould than Trunchbull. Or are we still under the pitiful misconception that feminism is all about not wearing make-up and being needlessly aggressive?

Great point - yes she's given magic, but a magic so feeble (it took weeks of training for Matilda to life a piece of chalk for one minute) that it would have been worth nothing without her brains.

And the character is lovely, true, but the most praiseworthy feature of this novel (described on the back of my edition as "a real book for children") is the way it makes you want to read a whole list of books without being diactic.

Sure, I'd have read Brighton Rock, Animal Farm, Jane Eyre, Conrad and Dickens "the great storyteller" anyway, but it would have been a good deal later - and I doubt I would have got to the Red Pony at all.

And it's just occurred to me that Dahl, in naming the evil aunt Agatha, was nodding back to Wilde and Wodehouse.

And I have to agree with the comments above - this goes beyond being a book in which sex is unimportant: save for the father, there's not a male of consequence in it.

"And..And..And..." Sorry, I should know by now never to comment when you're looking over your shoulder at work.

this topic seems to make for a fine debate actually

It sounds like you're thinking of Emma Watson and film Hermione!

In Deathly Hallows, how else would Ron and Harry have escaped the wedding? Hermione's ingenius packing of her tiny beaded bag, her organising much of the travel and charms to heal the wounds from Ron's splinching may be seen as feminine traits, but I don't think they're anti-feminist. I think the intelligent, brave and fierce Hermione remains throughout the books. Sometimes she may patronise Harry and Ron a little, but they're (in my opinion) pretty accurately clueless teenage boys.

But the BFG didn't go on to forge a career as a model, celebrity chef and children's author.

Of course I may be confusing fiction with realiity again, time to up the medication!

We salute her for proving how big brains and a good heart can win out in the end.

Also telekinesis. Big brains, a good heart and telekinesis.

'rare leading female'
rare??????
Have you red any of Dahl's books?

My only memories of Matilda are off a cassette tape that we used to play in the car on long family journeys. The main lesson to be learned from this version appeared to be that stupid people spoke with working class accents while brilliant little girls spoke perfect RP. Has that changed at all in the musical?

Another attack on chavs by the chatterers. . Most children that read early do so because one or both of their parents have encouraged it, lower-class or no.

I spoke too soon

We salute her for proving how big brains and a good heart can win out in the end.

And telekinesis.

It's a fun story, no doubt about that, but (speaking from experience) for swot kids the problem isn't going to be demonic teachers, it's the little shits you share the classroom with.

There aren't that many leading girls in Roald Dahl, to be fair. I can only think of two goodies - Matilda and Sophie.

Baddies are more common - Violet and Verucca from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Grand High Witch from The Witches, Mrs Twit...

Happy to be corrected tho, it's been a fair few years since I read any Dahl!

The link between Matilda and Carrie has always struck me as well. Which is why it seems remarkably brave for the RSC to pick another book about a telekinetic female lead to do a musical about, after the experience of their Carrie musical.

I don't think I labour under such a misconception - but Dahl may well have done. You can read an account of the man here. Interestingly, it reveals that in the first version of 'Matilda' the heroine starts out as a monster who tortures her parents. Dahl's editor had much to do with fashioning the version we have today.

That's the oddest editorial I've seen in a British newspaper.

What a sad curmudgeonly bunch of comments with a few notable exceptions.

The whole point about Matilda, and Hermione to a certain extent though she doesn't have to fight to learn, is that she's a wonderful role model for young women who are inundated with media exhortations to become celebrities, dye their hair, diet so they can become worthy girlfriends, wives and mothers. Because in spite of all the increased educational opportunities, and the change in society's attitude to women, that's still how it is for a lot of people, much as we'd like to believe that things have changed

The Hermiones of this world tend to succeed and have a career, but I've taught a lot of potential Matildas over the years who never escaped their mum's world. Mind you, they hadn't developed their telekinetic powers.

I'm going to see the musical tonight! =) I've heard it's very good

You haven't been here long, have you? You think this is weird, they had an "In praise of... Jedward" the other day.

Matilda - a hero for bookworm children everywhere (although I can't say I was reading Austen quite as soon as she was)

I don't think the editorial was trying to make a feminist statement at all, just that it's nice for a book to have a female protagonist who wins out in the end mainly by being a nice person (and yes, also by using telekinesis). I very much doubt that Roald Dahl had any feminist sentiments in mind at all - his short stories for adults are hardly sympathetic towards women on the whole - but if nothing else we can at least praise Matilda for being a great book.

I believe that the character Tiffany Aching, in four books by Terry Prachett is very popular and a lot more mature.

I always thought her super powers were a result of her super intelligence. I don't remember exactly as it's been a while since I read it, but doesn't Miss Honey theorize that Matilda is using the parts of her brain that most of us don't? (Or am I thinking of that film where Bradley Cooper takes that pill?)

I could be wrong. But as they come from the power of her mind, maybe Matilda's superpowers could be read as a metaphor for her intelligence.

It doesn't undermine the premise at all. Matlida's powers aren't a result of accidentally blundering into a radioactive spider, they're a result of her incredible brain power (developed primarily through reading) and her lack of opportunity to use them at school.

I found this interpretation implausible even when I was a 10-year old boy (reading copious amounts of superhero comic books in addition to Dahl). If you could develop something like this through reading and thinking then every librarian would have minor Jedi mind powers, I reasoned at the time. Even a radioactive spider sounds more plausible because radioactivity is one of the more bizarre phenomena in nature and can have genuinely weird consequences. Reading never does, at least not in a (meta-)physical sense.

And yes, you can certainly argue that it's all just part of one big educational metaphor: "the message is that reading is good for you and makes you stronger!" Which is some kind of truism, of course, but this doesn't change the fact that some didactic metaphors still make for more plausible narratives than others.

Also, I could be misremembering, admittedly, but I don't believe that the explanation you're giving is explicitly in the book. Implied, perhaps, but to any reader who wasn't open to the implication (like me), her magic powers came completely out of the blue, in deus ex machina fashion.

To me, this is a story of a good and smart girl, surrounded by bad people. Completely randomly it seems, she gains an extraordinary power with which she proceeds to torture the bad people for the readers' amusement, and with which she procures a happy ending for the "good" people in the story that could never have happened otherwise.

And even on those more limited terms, less moralistic terms, I think it is a great, enormously entertaining story. A true classic children's tale. But not more than that, either.

I too genuinely regret the dearth of female protagonanists. Doesn't change the fact that with Matilda we have dug out a less than ideal candidate here.

this is a story of a good and smart girl, surrounded by bad people. Completely randomly it seems, she gains an extraordinary power with which she proceeds to torture the bad people for the readers' amusement, and with which she procures a happy ending for the "good" people in the story that could never have happened otherwise.

Sounds a wee bit like The Magic Finger.