Site Updates

Lots of new information about “Your Loving Wife”

I was really tickled a few weeks back to receive an email from Oliver Houston, a playwright living in the UK who is working on a new piece that will reference Dahl’s failed play “Your Loving Wife” (aka “The Honeys”). Oliver has been researching the play but couldn’t confirm which theatre it played in Bournemouth. I joined his effort and was able to find a newspaper clipping from October 1956 that showed it was the Bournemouth Pavilion. I also found a reference to a collection of contemporary reviews at a museum in Wales. Oliver contacted the museum and shared with me his transcripts of the reviews, which I’ve now added to the site.

How cool is that? I love that even after nearly 30 years of working on this website, I can still get a stumper of a question and end up learning something new about Dahl.

Trivia Quizzes are back online!

Apologies to anyone who had issues with the trivia quizzes lately! Something broke and I had to get some help to fix it. Thankfully it’s all resolved now, so you should be able to resume putting your Dahl knowledge to the test!

: The BFG Quiz

: Boy – Tales of Childhood Quiz

: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Quiz

: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Quiz

: The Enormous Crocodile Quiz

: Esio Trot Quiz

: George’s Marvelous Medicine Quiz

: The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me Quiz

: James and the Giant Peach Quiz

: Matilda Quiz

: The Twits Quiz

: The Witches Quiz

Don’t try this at home!

In December 2020, the British Medical Journal published a very special scientific paper: “Toxicological analysis of George’s marvellous medicine: literature review“. Graham Johnson, a consultant in emergency and paediatric medicine, and Patrick Davies, a consultant in paediatric intensive care, reviewed each of the 34 ingredients in George’s marvelous medicine against a poison control database to assess the toxicity.

Our findings suggest that far from being marvellous, George’s medicine is in fact incredibly toxic.

Don’t try this at home, kids! 😂

“Gremlins… A Warning!”

I’ve recently tracked down yet another version of Dahl’s Gremlins, this time a short story called “Gremlins… A Warning!” from the April 11, 1943 issue of This Week Magazine. Based on the timing, I’m fairly certain this was published as part of a concerted marketing push to keep the public interested in the Gremlins characters while Disney continued to struggle with the planned film production. It’s interesting to see that this version is credited to Dahl directly (as opposed to Cosmopolitan’s story five months earlier, which used the pseudonym “Pegasus”).

“Gremlins... A Warning” from April 1943 “This Week Magazine”

The return of the Trivia Master Boards!

This site used to have a very popular feature, where – if you got 100% correct on one of the trivia quizzes – you could put your name up on the Trivia Master Board. Unfortunately I had to discontinue the feature when I redesigned the site, and I hadn’t had the time to bring it back… until now!

As a trial, I have re-enabled the Master Boards for The BFG Quiz and the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Quiz. Please try them out and let me know if you encounter any bugs!

Willy Wonka’s Hottest Item

I’ve finally managed to track down a scan of “Willy Wonka’s Hottest Item,” an early draft chapter that was later cut from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s really cool to read, both for the differences from the published version (there were no Oompa-Loompas yet!) and for the clear similarities to storylines that were later developed. Go here to have a look!

Rainbow Theatre Company audio books?

Has anyone heard of a set of Roald Dahl audio books from the Rainbow Theatre Company? I received the following request from a site visitor named Blake:

i am looking for a specific series of Roald Dahl audiobooks. They were produced in 1983 i believe by the Rainbow Theatre company and included dramatized versions of Fantastic Mr Fox, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I have found the latter on Youtube. The two others were on Youtube too several years ago, but have since been taken down. I would like to procure my own copies of each but I have hit a brick wall with my own internet research. I was curious whether you or anyone in your fan community had them, or maybe even some advice on where I could go looking

any help would be very much appreciated

If you have any information on these, please leave a comment or contact me and I’ll put you in touch with Blake!

Edited in June 2021:

Guess what? I’ve just found an Ebay auction with four of these audiobooks! I’ve emailed Blake to let him know and added info to the Audio Books page.

New game – Escape the Sharks!

This Scratch game was created by me as part of the HarvardX: CS50 Introduction to Computer Science course in January 2018. It’s based on James and the Giant Peach. You’ll need Flash enabled in your browser to play it. (You can also find the game here.)

Instructions: The giant peach is floating in the ocean but our heroes are surrounded by ravenous sharks. James has convinced Earthworm to act as bait for the many seagulls circling overhead, but his courage won’t last long! As each one swoops, James must lasso it with spider’s web before it pecks poor Earthworm. How many seagulls can you catch? James will tie each one to the peach stem as you go…

New timeline, and more audiobooks added!

How was your Christmas? I spent some time over the break working on the website. The timeline has changed from static text pages to a new, dynamic version that includes images. You can filter it by category as well. I’ve also added over 20 audio books to the site, including several in Czech, Dutch, French, and German.

Willy Wonka concept artwork up for auction tomorrow!

On November 21, 2017, Bonhams auction house in New York City will hold an auction of movie memorabilia including many pieces from the estate of Harper Goff. Several pieces of concept artwork for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are up for sale. (Thanks to Justin Humphreys for letting us know!)

If you want to see more of the artwork, check out the auction or our archive here.