www.roalddahl.comwww.davidwood.org.uk RESOURCES DOWNLOADABLE INCLUDES LINKSTO

Artwork © Quentin Blake Used by arrangement with A P Watt at United Agents PAGE ONE

Hi I’m George! I’ve jam-packed this online resource with things for you to enjoy and to help you learn some things that I think might be useful. I’m going to take you on a journey with me through this theatre production of my story where you will get some inside information on how we are going to make the magic come alive for audiences to see. You’ll get to meet the actors and the director, designers and composer along the way. Maybe you will have some ideas to share with me as we go?Are you ready? For young inventors (how to use this) I have lots of different dreams, sometimes I’d like to be a magician, and then I think it would be wonderful to be an inventor, or a doctor, or a writer, or even a spy. My mum says I’ve got plenty of time to learn about all of FOR TEACHERS AND GROWN UPS these things and I thought (HOW TO USE THIS) perhaps you would like to find out more too? This online resource has been developed for young learners to engage with the story of George’s Marvellous Medicine as a Along with my undercover stage production. It can also be used as a practical reference for detective work on the investigating aspects of the novel by Roald Dahl. The resource theatre production of my is narrated by George and will be released in three stages: story (I really would make a great spy), I’ve included Contextual information some letters that I wrote The authors, the story and the characters. to the authors, my diary Themes, ideas and activities and excellent links to some Inventors, Environment, Sounds and Music, Language, activities, facts, music and Family video. You just need to click on the Download link From Page to Stage as you go. Putting together the theatre production There are links to facts and visual material, as well as links to video and audio sources.

There are links to PDF’s that can be printed for your use. There are also behind the scenes video and audio material that you can access to help prepare young learners for a visit to the theatre. Click on this icon and it will take you to the PDF’s, audio or visual material and this will be added throughout the rehearsal process for the production. PAGE TWO

Before we start, I thought it might be a marvellous idea to find out more about who created my story in the first place and how it came to be an action packed production for the theatre. Roald Dahl wrote the children’s book and then David Wood decided it would make a brilliant play. I wrote Mr Dahl a letter asking some questions and I was lucky enough to interview Mr Wood. This is what I discovered…

Dear Mr Dahl, I’m so happy that you decided to write a story about the making of my Marvellous Medicine. And it’s wonderful that Mr Wood has made this story into a script so that it can be performed in the theatre for lots of children and grown ups to enjoy. I wonder what it was like when you were growing up? I did wonder about what you meant when you say ‘For Doctors everywhere’, I’d really like to be a doctor - how marvellous to make medicines that can really help people. I’m not entirely sure if being a doctor is the right job for me. I’d also like to do something adventurous like fly a plane or invent a new machine that would make life easier on the farm. My mum and dad are still very busy running the farm - they ask me to help them all the time, did your family ever give you any peace and quiet? Anyway, what I really wanted to ask was do you think there might be the possibility of a second book? Like George’s Mighty Machine or George’s Magical Map? Perhaps I could ask the young inventors and their grown ups to write one?

Yours Sincerely George (and Pinky, Perky, Chico and Bernie from the Farm)

Click on this icon to find out more about Roald Dahl PAGE THREE I think I would also make a great journalist, so I made my interview with Mr Wood into a news article.

The reason I have added this section is to make quite sure Thank you for coming to talk to me today Mr Wood, that the audience appreciates and sympathises with your why did you want to make my story into a marvellous problem, George. So, when you decide to try to make play for the theatre? Grandma better, by creating your marvellous medicine, we, sitting in the audience, all agree with your plan and are Well, George, I had already written several plays based willing to help you carry it out. I certainly didn’t want to on stories by Roald Dahl. These plays featured your make you seem like a nasty boy who is simply being cruel young colleagues, Sophie, Boy, James and Danny, so I to his grandmother. So I put in a scene where your real thought it was unfair that I shouldn’t write a play on your Grandma, the nasty one, is suddenly, in your imagination, story! Like most of Roald Dahl’s brilliant stories, there transformed into a lovely, generous, warm Grandma, the is something theatrical about the adventure in which you one that you – and all the audience – would love to have. create a marvellous, magical medicine. Stories featuring magic often work well on stage, and I also find that stories with a really good ‘baddie’ get the audiences emotions How did you become a writer for the theatre? working. We all tend to get hot under the collar about things that are unfair. And certainly your grandmother is The theatre, both performing and writing, was something a very unpleasant person, who treats you badly. We all I became interested in when I was very young. I was ten want you to succeed in your quest to make her ‘better’. years old when I wrote plays for my own puppet theatre. In Furthermore I thought that your family, George, would my early teens I wrote songs. I also started performing in be really interesting to see on stage. Your mother and public, singing songs and doing magic tricks. By the time father are very real people with real problems. Your father I was twelve I was doing magic at children’s parties. At works very hard on the farm, your mother works hard too, university I did some more writing for theatre shows and but also has the problem of her ‘difficult’ mother (your did a lot of acting, which led to me becoming a professional grandmother) to contend with. Many families are like this actor. Then a theatre where I was performing asked me to in real life. But none of them experience the excitement of write the Christmas play. That was exactly fifty years ago, the extraordinary events leading from your brilliant idea to believe it or not! Since then I have written many plays for create your marvellous medicine. Finally, I always enjoy young audiences, plus a number of children’s books. But having animals in my plays. Although these animals don’t the theatre is where I feel I belong. talk or carry the main threads of the story – as the animals do in, for instance, FANTASTIC MR FOX – they are very Have you ever invented anything? important and, most of all, fun, particularly when your magic so dramatically changes them! If you count the creation of new stories, I suppose I have invented things. But I cannot claim to have invented anything as clever or remarkable as your medicine, George. What things are different from the book written by It seems to me that the success of Roald Dahl’s story about Roald Dahl? Is it exactly the same story? you and your family confirms my belief in the importance When writing the play, I tried very hard to be faithful to of creativity in all our lives, and certainly in education. Roald Dahl’s story, and I think I succeeded. Anyone who Learning facts is important, but so is the opportunity to knows the book will certainly recognise nearly everything think up ideas and stories and poems and plays and games, they see on the stage. But I did add a section at the and to act out our stories, or paint them in pictures or beginning. I gave your story, George, what is sometimes words. We all need stories. The whole world needs stories. called a ‘back story’. That means that we start off a little No matter what age we are. So I’d like everybody to be while before Roald Dahl’s story starts. We meet you and allowed enough time to think, to dream, to create – to use your parents, but your Grandma isn’t already living with their imaginations. you. We hear that she is coming to stay, because she has www.davidwood.org.uk/index.htm been unwell and needs to rest and be looked after. This sends your family into turmoil, because everybody knows that your Grandma is difficult and often unpleasant. Not only that, she will have to have your bedroom, George, because there is no spare bedroom in the house. So you Click on this icon to download an have to give up your room and sleep in a small box room. activity PDF. PAGE FOUR

There’s a lot of things that happen in my story and in the play this is divided into scenes so that the actors and director can rehearse it more easily. There are some things that I think are going to be pretty amazing to see on the stage. Like how on earth is grandma going to grow and what about all of the farm animals? I wrote a diary about all of the things that happened. Read it andinto see an if action you have packed any ideastheatre about production? making my story

SCENE ONE WHERE – George’s Den WHEN – Early in the morning- Sunrise I’m trying to read this really great book about Billy the Wizard but my Mum and Dad keep interrupting me, they need help milking the cows, feeding the chickens and SCENE TWO getting the bull back in the field. I haven’t got School today WHERE – The house but they have to keep working to keep the farm running. I WHEN – 9am wish I could play with my friends from the village but it’s Grandma arrives with lots of luggage and too far away instead I have the pigs Pinky and Perky to talk starts bossing us all around, she tells us to instead. about the medicine the she take 3 times Everything is going well until mum gets a letter to say that a day and mum puts it in a safe place. Grandma is going to come and stay and is arriving today. Grandma has a bell that she rings if she And worse of all, she has to stay in my bed! needs anything and she says that when she rings it we have to go and help her. But thankfully she has a nap so I can carry on reading my book about Billy.

SCENE THREE WHERE – George’s Bedroom and the Kitchen WHEN – 10am Just as I’m getting back into my book the bell rings. Oh no! Grandma! She tells me to make her a cup of tea and doesn’t even say thank you when I give it to her. She is so mean and bossy that I imagine what it might be like if she was a nice, sweet and fun Grandma and while I am day dreaming she rings her bell again. When I go to find out what she wants this time, she tells me I’m growing too fast and that I should eat cabbage and not chocolate (can you believe it?). She really starts to frighten me and I think perhaps she might actually be a real life witch. I get away from her and she falls asleep again. I wish I could find a way of making her disappear. I start thinking about all the ways I could get Grandma back. Perhaps I could frighten her with a ghost mask, or rats or a snake? But I don’t think this wold really work so I start to think about ways that I can make Grandma nicer instead. Just as I think I can relax and read my book again mum asks me to make the beds, clean the bathroom and worse of all give grandma her medicine at One O Clock. Then dad asks me to muck out the chickens and so I have to give up on reading my brilliant book. There’s no rest on the farm. Then I have this amazing idea, what if I made a magic medicine to cure Grandma? To make her nicer? But the problem is the ingredients for a magic medicine are tricky to find. I have another idea- I can put ANYTHING into the medicine. I get to work straight away.

SCENE FOUR WHERE – In the bathroom, Mum and Dad’s Bedroom, The Shed and the Kitchen WHEN – 12pm I start to make my medicine (Our medicine really). The only rule is that I mustn’t use anything from the actual medicine cabinet, that is strictly out of bounds. I find a large Saucepan in the kitchen and nearly get caught by Grandma- I’m going to have to keep quiet if I’m going to pull this off. So I creep around the house adding ingredients as I go. First the bathroom, and then the bedroom, then I head to the Kitchen and finally find lots of great ingredients in the shed. The only problem is the mixture is blue and I need it to be brown. I find some brown paint and add a bit of the actual medicine and boil it all up, say a magic rhyme and it turns brown. It’s ready! PAGE FIVE

SCENE FIVE WHERE – Grandma’s room (that is really my room!) WHEN – 1pm (on the dot) I give Grandma her medicine and the most amazing thing happens. She shoots up in the air and falls back down again, then she starts to smoke and says her tummy is on fire. I get the fire extinguisher (perhaps I should be a fire fighter?). I think it’s all over but then Grandma starts to grow taller and taller until she goes through the roof, with a long neck and long legs SCENE SIX and her long arms reaching out. Grandma tries to say it was her powers WHERE – The Farm Yard that did this but I showed her by giving the medicine to Chico the Chicken WHEN – 1.30pm (lunchtime) that it was my medicine that made this happen! The Chicken becomes Even though Grandma is now giant, huge just in time for mum and dad to come home. Mum faints and dad she still makes us run around after her, can’t believe his luck. We try the medicine on some of the other animals and she has her lunch. I have to climb and before you know it we have giant animals and a giant grandma up a ladder to give it to her, that’s how wrecking our Farm. It’s time to take a breather. This is where you will have tall she is. My Dad has big plans to the interval of the play, I wonder what will happen next? make more of the medicine to sell to other farmers, so that it will help to end hunger and make lots of money. The only thing is is that I can’t remember everything that I put into it!

SCENE SEVEN WHERE – All the rooms in the house WHEN – 2.00pm Dad has an idea to go back into all of the rooms that I went in when I made the SCENE EIGHT medicine to try and remember what I put WHERE – The Farmyard in. We start with the bathroom, then the WHEN – 3pm bedroom, then the Kitchen and finally the But just it’s legs get longer (and chicken’s legs are not enough to shed. We boil the mixture up, and when eat!). I remember that we forgot to say the magic spell. So we try it’s ready we feed it to one of the chickens. again but this time with the spell, It looks like it’s going to work, only the Cockerels neck gets longer (that’s no use!). I must’ve forgotten something else! What could it be? Then I remember that I forgot to put in grandmas’s actual medicine- thankfully mum had just picked some up when she went shopping. We try it all again. With the magic spell, the medicine all remembered. Surely this has got to work? We try it on a chicken and it starts to shrink until finally it disappears!

SCENE NINE WHERE – the Farm yard WHEN – 4pm Dad is really disappointed. I wonder what I have forgotten? I’m trying to think when Grandma rings her bell. She wants a cup of tea. She SCENE TEN sees that I’m holding the new medicine (the WHERE – George’s Den, The Farm Yard shrinking one) in a tea cup and thinks it’s tea. WHEN – 6pm (Supper time) Grandma insists that I give it to her, so I climb Everyone is a little shocked at first, but up the ladder and she drinks it. She starts to soon we start to think that it’s much more shrink until she is back to her usual size, and peaceful on the farm without Grandma, and then keeps on shrinking until she disappears. I can get back to reading my book about Billy the Wizard knowing that I have magic powers all of my own. The characters- My Family in the story PAGE SIX I’d love to be a Spy like Roald Dahl, I’ve been doing some snooping to see what I could find out about my family. Pretty interesting stuff. I wonder if you could make a spy NAME profile about me? KILLY KRANKY AGE – 35 LIVES – Kranky Farm OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS – Mary Kranky (wife), George Kranky (Son) and Grandma (Mother in law). OCCUPATION – Farmer HOBBIES – Too busy for hobbies. LIKES – Making plans, apple pie, making things. DISLIKES – Mucking out the chicken because they peck, working every day. AMBITION – To make money from the farm so that I can employ a farm hand and have a day off.

NAME MARY KRANKY AGE – Won’t say but says she is younger than dad. LIVES – Kranky Farm OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS – Killy Kranky (Husband), George Kranky (Son) and Grandma (Mother in law). OCCUPATION – Farmer and environmental scientist. HOBBIES – Tennis, rock climbing, geology. LIKES – Finding ways to make the farm more environmentally friendly, sensible ideas. DISLIKES – When people don’t recycle, when Grandma comes to stay. AMBITION – To enjoy the peace of the country side and find ways to protect the environment.

NAME GRANDMA AGE – Ancient- at least 105 I would guess. LIVES – Usually in the City. OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS – George Kranky (Grandson), Mary Kranky (Daughter) Killy Kranky (Son in Law) Grandpa (Husband- no longer with us). Click on this to OCCUPATION – Former Witch (possibly?). make your own spy profile HOBBIES – Sleeping, drinking tea, doing very little. LIKES – Tea, sleeping. DISLIKES – Children growing, chocolate, the countryside. AMBITION – To do as little as possible, and get everyone else to run around for her.