Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Malinda Parris in The Enormous Crocodile at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London. Picture: Johan Persson

Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical continues at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London until 8 June 2024.

Roald Dahl’s time-honoured 1978 tale of a very peckish crocodile (we 1970s parents know it by heart) is effectively a very light-hearted take on the traditional overcoming-the-monster story. And in the hands of Suhayla El-Bushra and Ahmed Abdullahi Gallab (additional music and lyrics by Tom Brady), with Emily Lim directing, it makes a wittily entertaining piece of musical theatre.

The set (Fly Davis) is green and jungly and the show opens with the cast, looking leafy, touring the auditorium with coloured puppet birds on rods. And there’s a rather gorgeous scene at the end when we get huge planets and blue smoke as the eponymous reptile goes of to be “sizzled like a sausage” by the sun.

Musical director Màth Roberts sits with a keyboard in a side-stage Perspex box resembling a bird hide – although most of the musical texture is pre-recorded.

The songs use a lot of Dahl’s words – impeccably clear diction – and come in a range of quite catchy rhythms so it’s arresting for a young audience.

The ebullient cast of five is good at engaging with the audience and gives every impression of enjoying themselves. Malinda Parris’ Crocodile is great fun, cackling like a panto villain but morphing into a rather delicious diva when singing. The lowest notes in her register are beautiful.

At the press performance I attended the cast almost deserved an extra star for cheerful stoicism. It was raining quite hard and at one point the stage manager stopped the show for five minutes so that an ant-like team of eight stage crew could sweep the water off the stage for health and safety reasons.

But the real star of this show is Toby Olié’s puppetry. The ideas are simple but perfect. Paris operates the Crocodile’s huge head, for instance, but its body and tail are represented in sections in several neat ways. The children (who don’t get eaten, of course, despite all the Crocodile’s efforts) are puppets incorporated into the stance of the actors and Trunky the Elephant is totally convincing, although he has no body.

It’s half term next week. Round up some children and take them to see this – preferably on a sunny day. You won’t be disappointed.

Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile The Musical is a Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, Roald Dahl Story Company and Leeds Playhouse production.

Susan Elkin