Revolting Rhymes - morals and mayhem

Over Christmas, plenty of people will have tuned into such BBC highlights as Doctor Who or the new Julia Donaldson adaptation, The Highway Rat. But one thing which might have slipped under the radar is the 2016 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.

I grew up on Dahl. I never remember being disturbed by the content. But now, when I read it to my daughter, I find myself wondering if I should be reading it at all. It’s full of violence, of brutality and very vicious characters. If you compare it to Julia Donaldson’s charming and inoffensive works, or the Oxford Reading Tree, or even that risqué character Horrid Henry then you will still find nothing that compares to Dahl for either mischief or violence. Even other Dahl’s other work, such as George’s Marvellous Medicine, Matilida, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, don’t contain as much darkness as Revolting Rhymes.

The production team for this two-part show were the same who worked on the Donaldson adaptations. Notably, in The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child, there have been darker elements than is found in the books. The main premise of The Gruffalo is a mouse trying to avoid being eaten by various predators; yet as he journeys through the wood, he encounters many animals who have not been so fortunate as he. I still shudder when I think of the look on that fish’s face as it gets hauled out of the water by a heron in The Gruffalo adaption, an image that was lacking in the book. By choosing to adapt Revolting Rhymes, the BBC had taking on a very dark work indeed, but it excelled. This adaptation has so much thought and depth in it.

The first of the two episodes deals with three stories: Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and Snow White; the second one masterfully interweaves the story of Cinderella with that of Jack and the Beanstalk. There is a subtle balance of speech and narrative that allows the original rhyming couplets themselves to be kept in the adaptation without it sounding laboured or forced. In the original book, the stories of Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs are already interconnected with Red appearing in both, so it seemed like a natural choice to adapt those two together. However, adding in a friendship between Red and Snow adds an additional and beautiful element. Cinderella and Jack were not connected in any way in the original book, but the manner in which the two stories interrelate in the second episode is just bewitching; with the crossover points carefully chosen, particularly the end of Jack’s story, it’s almost as if Dahl intended that connection all along.

Just as the Donaldson adaptations are done in the style of Alex Scheffler, so the Dahl adaptation has the look and feel of Quentin Blake’s illustrations. There’s a distinct quirkiness to the rendering of both the characters and the setting. The production team have also added in little extra visual clues and jokes, such as the newspapers which report what is going on in other stories, or the fact that Jack walks past a shop called simply “Useful Things” then stops before the magic shop.

The Donaldson adaptations all have extra little bits in them to bring the poetry to life in way that wouldn’t be possible with just a straight recitation. In Room on the Broom, the witch and her cat are trying to find somewhere to camp; in The Gruffalo, the story is told by a squirrel to her offspring in an ironic attempt to calm them about narrowly avoiding being eaten themselves; and in The Highway Rat, there is a whole extra dynamic added to the story in the form of the rat’s relationship with his horse. In Revolting Rhymes, the team have chosen to take the front cover and turn it into a framing narrative that is its own story, and this is really where the genius of the adaptation comes from.

As a child, I remember picking up Revolting Rhymes and staring in morbid fascination at the picture on the front. Who were the two children? How had they got themselves into such a precarious position? The wolf’s intention was clear, its little pink tongue hinting at what was to come. How would these kids get out this mess? Or rather, since it was Dahl, would these kids get out of this mess? The production team seem to have asked the same questions and created a story to answer them.

The lynchpin to this additional story is the wolf, perfectly voiced by Dominic West. The wolf’s character is designed to elicit changing responses from the audience throughout. To begin with, he’s the suspicious stranger, the typical Big Bad Wolf out of the storybooks. When Miss Hunt cheers at the death of Rolf, we sympathise with her - that’s how stories are supposed to go: the plucky young heroine defeats the hungry, slavering wolf. It’s clear that the wolf doesn’t think so. But when it comes to Rex’s death, Miss Hunt’s attitude is instead one of pity for the wolf sitting across the table from her. She, like those of us watching, have stopped seeing him as the predictable villain. Instead, he was the one who told his nephews not to venture out for his own safety; he was the one who didn’t provoke Red. All that sympathy, however, is turned on its head at the cliff-hanger ending of part one, when the wolf’s actions cause you to reevaluate your opinion of him.

Part two begins in the house across the street, chronologically just a little before the ending of part one. We see events from the other side up until the wolf steps through the door. Once again, we begin with the theory that this is the Big Bad Wolf that we’re all familiar with. The wolf himself certainly doesn’t do anything to dispel this idea and, just like the wolf on the front cover of the book, his intention to eat these two children is made very plain. The audience gains as much entertainment from watching the battle of wills between the wolf and the little girl as they do from watching the tales unfold, perhaps more so as there seems to be so much more at stake in the framing narrative.

Just as the visuals in the tales are used to enhance the story, the expressions in the framing narrative tale are used to tell the story more coherently than any words could manage. Again, we watch the wolf transform himself, this time through his expressions rather than his actions. At first he is irritated at the little girl’s interruption and delay. Then, when the little boy gets drawn into the story being told, the wolf looks smug at his achievement. He looks genuinely pleased when first the boy, and then the girl, laughs at his tale; he appears shocked when the little boy starts to cry with fear and the girl glares at him. He looks confused and hurt when the little girl has a go at him for not giving the tale of Cinderella a happy ending.

Then finally, in the closing scenes, the mastery of animation is shown in how the end of the tale plays out with only four words and the sound of a buzzer to assist. When the stories are done and the children are asleep and vulnerable, the wolf breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the audience. He’s asking the question… should I? How will my tale end? I know how it was supposed to end, but is that really the story I want to be a part of?

Having the wolf as the narrator all the way through gives him a position of power: he tells the stories and, in part two in particular, it’s clear he’s make up elements of them and twisting them to obtain a particular response from the children. In the final scenes, it becomes abundantly clear that he’s been in charge of how the story in the framing narrative has played out all along. As he stares down Red, just before he leaves, it is clear that things are the way they are only because he chose what the ending was going to be.

The BBC have by far and away created a classic. They’ve managed to create a Dahl for the screen that is as dark, brutal and charming as the original stories. They’ve not shied away from the content (except that the stepsisters are still clearly alive after their heads have been cut off, and the word “slut” has been replaced by “mutt”) and in addition, they’ve created a brand new tale, inspired by Blake’s illustration and with all Dahl’s twisted hallmarks. This two-part series deserves to become a time-honoured classic.

Revolting Rhymes - morals and mayhem

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