Creating Believable Characters: Bruce Bogtrotter

 

Introducing part 1 of our new video series, “Creating Believable Characters” which will give you an insight into how the famous Roald Dahl characters were created and adapted for the stage. Watch and read below to hear from writer of the book for Matilda The Musical, Dennis Kelly, on creating Bruce Bogtrotter.

 

Dennis Kelly: “It’s hard to get a character to live up to a name like Bruce Bogtrotter because it’s such an outrageous name. Roald Dahl is brilliant at very quickly letting you know what a character is so for me actually it was quite easy. All I was doing was taking what he’d already made and maybe expanding it a little and then playing with it. But if you like what he’s made it’s easy.”

“Roald Dahl gives you this character who loves eating and who has to eat this cake and who manages to win it and then gives you a burp. Once you’ve got all of those things it’s easy to take those things and run a little bit further with it and expand them and make the burp the biggest burp in the world. It’s all there in the original.”

 “If I didn’t like the character it would be difficult. If I thought the character was boring or not interesting I’d find it hard but because I like those characters and I thought they were fun it was enjoyable to play with them a little bit and take them a little bit further.”