Reviews of Giant in the West End starring John Lithgow

"John Lithgow is mesmerising as Roald Dahl in this summer smash"

"Now in a West End transfer, this pithy drama – which delves into the anti-Semitism storm that engulfed Dahl in 1983 – is the play to see"

"...Giant strides into the West End looking like an unslayable hit, its relevance to the incendiary international moment, Israel/ Gaza-wise, undimmed."

"Led by a career-best performance from John Lithgow, Nicholas Hytner’s superbly acted production doesn’t make insistent early attempts to woo us."

"But as the reputational crisis that Maschler is venturing to broach rears to the fore, with the flustered arrival of his American counterpart (the fictional character of Jessie Stone), the piece gains the inexorable, transfixing momentum of, well, a giant peach hurtling downhill."

"Even if there’s a blunt dramatic convenience to this character holding the not-so-lovable eccentric to account, especially in relation to a construed anti-Semitic subtext to The Witches, what remains hugely impressive about Giant is its complex plethora of thought-provoking little details."

"John Lithgow’s Roald Dahl conquers the West End"

"You’ll both pity and revile Lithgow’s portrait of the antisemitic author in Nicholas Hytner’s immaculate production of Mark Rosenblatt’s enthralling play"

"Are we likely to see a more enthralling play in the West End this year? I very much doubt it. In fact, we’ll be lucky to encounter a more thought-provoking piece in the next decade. Mark Rosenblatt’s debut drama, first seen at the Royal Court last autumn, really is that good."

"Nicholas Hytner’s immaculately paced production arrives at the Harold Pinter Theatre trailing a clutch of Olivier awards, and with the American actor John Lithgow reprising his incandescent portrayal of children’s author Roald Dahl as an unforgettable mixture of wit, charm, bully and unfiltered antisemite."

"I think I have run out of superlatives to describe Lithgow’s performance. He gives us a vain elderly gent, wracked by physical pain and memories of family tragedy, whom we both pity and revile. Every gesture, every icy glance is perfectly calibrated"

"On a second viewing, you’re even more aware of how intelligently the tension is allowed to ebb and flow before the final scenes set off a detonation."

"John Lithgow v Ewan McGregor — there’s only one winner"

"The American star portrays the antisemitic children’s author Roald Dahl in the West End transfer of Giant, while the Trainspotting actor returns to the British stage at last"

"There are laughs and there are gasps as John Lithgow’s sometimes delightful, sometimes horrible, always compelling Roald Dahl fills the air with his nonsense. The delightful nonsense — Dahl the genius teaser, the smiling provocateur — is the creation of Mark Rosenblatt"

"The glory of Giant is that it will suggest a route whereby such a monstrous statement can come from a man who is … ooh, arrogant, impulsive, manipulative, certainly. Yet also compassionate, wounded, self-aware. Not a monster at all, even if his fiction trades in them."

"Nicholas Hytner’s pitch-perfect production goes down a gear in the second half. This is both deliberate and deceptive"

"Mark Rosenblatt’s John Lithgow-powered Roald Dahl drama is back – and now it’s bigger and more troubling than ever"

"Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play goes against general advice. In fact he finds the biggest hornets’ nests he can and prods at all of them, and sees what comes flying out. What does come out is pretty spectacular."

"At the Royal Court you expect that kind of politics. The West End is for musicals and celebrities. But it does work, just as brilliantly. First off there’s John Lithgow (also all the awards) stooping and scowling his way into Dahl"

"Rosenblatt uses the great giant of children’s books and makes a very grown up play. Aided by Hytner’s crystalline production, where humour is never many lines away, he demands that these arguments play out, stink and vitriol and all, I guess in the hope that we can stop arguing them on repeat for the next forty years."

"There is no more urgent play in London right now"

"Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant tackles Roald Dahl’s antisemitism in blistering style with a sublimely nuanced performance by John Lithgow"

"There’s no more urgent play in London right now than Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, and no better performance than John Lithgow’s in it as an irascible, cruel, needling Roald Dahl."

"The atmosphere in Nicholas Hytner’s production is electric throughout."

"It’s not depressing to watch though, but by turns hilarious, searing and deeply moving. This is due to Rosenblatt’s multifaceted portrayal of Dahl, interpreted with sublime nuance by Lithgow."

"When I saw the play at the Court I thought the women’s roles were underwritten. But this time Stone (Aya Cash, replacing Romola Garai in this West End transfer) feels more rounded, her slow-burning rage finding full voice before the interval blackout."

"This is a terrific piece of work all round, that’s already been showered with Olivier and Critic’s Circle awards. Lithgow’s tremendous performance will loom large in the memory for a long time."

"Funny, shocking and thought-provoking: John Lithgow's towering performance brings the big unfriendly giant who was Roald Dahl back to life in the West End"

"In the course of Mark Rosenblatt's bold, brilliant dramatic portrait of Dahl, he reveals him to be both less and more: a monstrously complicated, immensely flawed, childlike human being, paradoxically overflowing with infinite compassion and unrepentant hatred."

"John Lithgow, in a transcendent performance that has won awards (and will doubtless win more) towers magnificently over proceedings as Dahl"

"Funny, shocking, thought-provoking, controversial, superbly staged (Nick Hytner) and performed, this play is all that theatre should be. Essential viewing."

"Roller coaster"

"John Lithgow stars as Roald Dahl in an electrifying mix of fact and fiction"

"This work doesn’t bring a new perspective to the political territory or to the real Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. But it does have the balls to buck the trend of brushing the details of Middle East conflict under the carpet – and that alone makes it well worth seeing."