Roald Dahl’s Matilda to embark on a Chinese adventure

Matilda the Musical, winner of seven Olivier Awards and five Tony Awards, will tour to 13 cities across China from June 2019 to January 2020.

As one of the most acclaimed stage shows in the United Kingdom, the musical produced by Royal Shakespeare Company is adapted from British writer Roald Dahl's 1988 novel of the same name.

The story centers on Matilda, a five-year-old girl of unusual precocity. Despite being badly treated by her silly parents and older brother Michael, she teaches herself to read and seeks to rewrite her own life.

The musical has won 87 awards and 93 young girls have been cast as Matilda since it opened at London's Cambridge Theatre in 2011. The producer reveals that they usually cast girls aged from 9 to 12 to perform the five-year-old Matilda but, explaining that the high turnover of lead actresses is because of how quickly children that age grow.

The musical is co-imported by Sevenages, a Beijing-based company specializing in musical copyrights, and Poly Theatre Management. The two also unveiled the rest of their 2019-2020 line up, including the Chinese version of The Sound of Music, Cinderella and Les Choristes (The Chorus).