Giant – Royal Court, London

Writer: Mark Rosenblatt

Director: Nicholas Hytner

In 1983, journalist Tony Clifton’s book God Cried documented Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in harrowing words and with devastating pictures by photojournalist Catherine LeRoy. In a book review for the Literary Review, author Roald Dahl used the opportunity to rail against not only the current Israeli government and their actions but also Jews in general.

With the October 7 attacks and the Netanyahu government’s subsequent actions in Gaza (and possibly, in a repetition of events some 40 years earlier, Lebanon) still fresh in the mind, Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant takes us into the Buckinghamshire home of Dahl (John Lithgow), covered in dustsheets for renovations led by the author’s longtime mistress and new fiancée, Rachael Stirling’s Felicity.

The focus is a tense – and imagined – summit between Dahl and representatives of his publishers. Elliot Levey brings his trademark mix of twinkle and steel to Dahl’s British publisher, Tom Maschler. Alongside him, Romola Garai’s American, Jessie Stone, is an altogether more complex, yet at times underwritten, counterpart.

The pair face the same problems. The hostile reaction to Dahl’s review is threatening sales of both his previous works and the forthcoming release of The Witches, a book whose portrayal of hook-nosed, child-eating, money-obsessed villains could be seen as reinforcing antisemitic tropes even if, as Dahl claims, they are based on characterisations of his mother. But while Maschler wants to do the minimum to sit out the furore – a puff piece in a Sunday supplement, with one question about the row, and then wait for the news cycle to peter out – Stone is more forthright in wanting a public apology.

Thus, the scene is set for a fictional framing in 1983 of a very real debate in 2024: how far can one go in criticising the actions of the Israeli state without it becoming an existential attack on the country as a whole? And when other actors in the region – which over the decades have included Hamas, the PLO, and Hezbollah – conduct relentless attacks on Israeli populations, what response is appropriate?

Framing such delicately thorny issues as an argument between one of Britain’s most famously prickly writers and his two publishers – who are both Jewish – throws such issues into stark relief, especially when portrayed by a top-flight cast. Lithgow captures the mercurial spirit of a man who was clearly capable of much empathy, especially towards children (his enquiries towards Jessie’s son exhibiting this facet well) but whose strident refusal to capitulate and to double down when cornered, exposes the damaged blackness in his soul.

Garai (who is rather better at acquiring an American accent than Lithgow is at losing his) is an effective foil, largely unafraid to stand up to her company’s biggest earner as she talks about not only how Dahl’s remarks have offended Jewish bookstore owners who are refusing to stock any of his works, but how she disagrees with him.

It is noticeable – and, one might say, characteristic of the man – that Dahl is mightily more dismissive of his female publisher than Maschler. On multiple occasions, Lithgow gives us a vision of a man who is affronted that a woman dares stand up to him. It is a shame, though, that the character of Stone – who, unlike Maschler, Dahl and Felicity, is a fictional creation of Rosenblatt – crumbles at times, weakening the character.

The philosophical debate with which the play engages is dealt with effectively, even if the conversations tend to drift into sub-Ayckbourn cliché the further away from the fractious heart Rosenblatt takes us. Tessa Bonham Jones gives a nice comedic flourish to her sardonic cook, but one wishes that her flair were more evident throughout.

But it is the antisemitism of Dahl that is the proper focus, and that is encapsulated well. While we hear extracts from the review in question, Rosenblatt leaves out some elements that would cast Lithgow’s character as unequivocally antisemitic. That is, perhaps, necessary to allow any nuance in the following arguments. A closing piece, in which some of Dahl’s other comments to journalists in the weeks following the review are condensed into a single speech, restores the absolute certainty about what the author felt and believed and had no compunction in expressing.

The man was a giant, to be sure. To those he deemed worthy, he could even be big and friendly. In its timely dissection of antisemitic beliefs, Giant reminds us that Roald Dahl was also a monster to match the grotesques within his own literary works.

Continues until 16 November 2024