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Back in 2023, a bitter debate erupted over the editing of Roald Dahl’s children’s books. His publishers, Puffin Books, had worked with Dahl’s estate (now owned by Netflix) to remove references to violence, body size, mental health, gender and skin colour. Now, a new play about an incident in Dahl’s later life is focusing on another controversy.

Giant (written by Mark Rosenblatt) is playing at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre until August 2. It features a masterly performance by John Lithgow in the role of Dahl. The play tracks the fallout from his 1983 review of God Cried, a photographic book by Catherine Leroy and Tony Clifton about the Israeli army’s siege of west Beirut.

However, in Rosenblatt’s blend of fact and fiction, the very real controversy arose not from the review, but from an interview Dahl gave that many Jewish and non-Jewish readers objected to as antisemitism (others saw it as a justified critique of Israel’s actions during the Lebanon war). This is melded with an imaginary situation in which Jewish representatives from Dahl’s British and American publishers visit his home to calm the backlash.

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Rosenblatt explores the tensions in this response both as it related to Dahl and to conversations across the world on the recent and ongoing attacks in Palestine and Israel.

Perhaps reflecting the controversy over Dahl’s language in his children’s books, this play, too, is engaged with conversation, language and word choices. The words we use about others, how that language is interpreted and meaning is formed, and discussions about language are all at the centre of the story. As is the discourse between different forms, styles, and times of writing, and the tension between spoken and written language.

While Rosenblatt’s script is centred on Dahl’s comments on Israel and Jewish people, it also engages with his spoken misogyny. This includes his repeated insulting epithets for American publisher Jessica Stone (Aya Cash) and his hectoring of housekeeper Hallie (Tessa Bonham Jones). It is no coincidence that the play is set right before the release of The Witches (1983), now a centre of complaints about Dahl’s written misogyny.

And while the play begins with some genuinely comic moments, the night I saw it the audience audibly gasped during the scene in which Dahl told The New Statesman that “even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on [the Jews] for no reasons”. It’s a quote taken directly from Dahl’s real interview with journalist Michael Coren in 1983.

In its engagement with the power of language and the potential effects of a political statement on the sales of Dahl’s books, the play returns viewers to the debate over cancel culture and the place of politics in and around children’s literature.

Today, such controversy centres on Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and the impact of her position on transgender rights on her millions of child and adult fans. But such criticisms of children’s authors for being too political have been made for decades.

Lithgow’s performance as Dahl adds another layer of complexity to the debate on age appropriateness and the validity of political comment. He centres his aged Dahl in a time of flux, unsettled and unwell, dealing with the renovation of his house. This is reflected in some clever staging in which the house as a place of sanctuary, work and rest has become a claustrophobic space in which people are on top of each other, nothing is where it belongs, and the only solace to be had is in a decent glass of wine.

He is also about to marry his long-term mistress, Felicity Crossland (Rachael Stirling), after divorcing his even longer-term wife. You can almost hear the creak of his knees as he moves around and feel the aches in his back as he stretches that gaunt frame.

Lithgow’s performance of age seems to explain some of Dahl’s crabby responses. As such, perhaps, the audience is tempted to ask questions that have been asked about “classic” literature before: is old age justification for prejudicial viewpoints? Is misogyny acceptable when someone was born in 1916? Is antisemitism excusable if someone is unwell?

While Rosenblatt and Lithgow may open the door to questions such as these, they close that door pretty firmly by the end of the play. The shock value of Dahl’s phone interview in which he exerts an agency belying his age and clearly demonstrates his antisemitism leaves the audience in little doubt as to the final message.

But with Dahl damned by his own antisemitism, what next? Is the play calling on cancel culture for Dahl? Is it claiming that his political views and language choices mean that we shouldn’t read The Witches to our children, in edited form or not?

Perhaps it leaves us rather back where we began: with questions over language, with debate, with more discussion on intent, and meaning, and appropriateness of language. We also need to question the rights of an individual – especially a celebrated children’s author – to express controversial views against the rights of an individual or group, especially when demonstrably abhorrent. And this conversation isn’t going to end any time soon.

Giant is at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre until August 2 2025.