WHAT better way to spend an autumnal afternoon than in the company of a giant spider, grasshopper, earthworm, centipede and ladybird – and an audience of excited children?

We were at the Mayflower to see the Birmingham Stage Company’s wonderful version of James and the Giant Peach.

Combining music, singing, acting and puppetry, the multi-talented cast of eight gave a lively, joyous performance of the Roald Dahl classic.

Playing an assortment of woodwind, strings and brass instruments, the actors gave a slick, polished performance.

Audience members around me were commenting ‘I can’t believe they are actually really playing their instruments’, which was testament to how professional they all were.

The cast were eager to have the young audience engage in the show, so there was a lot of audience participation and cast members running through the auditorium encouraging the children and adults alike to join in.

Dahl’s children’s story is one of my daughter’s favourite books so she was very excited at the thought of seeing it come to life on stage.

Before curtain up she had been surmising what the characters would look like, even guessing the wicked aunts’ hairstyles and colour.

Aunt Spiker may not have had the wild blue style she had pictured but her imagination wasn’t far wrong!

For those unfamiliar with the tale, it tells the story of James, who goes to live with horrid aunts after his parents are eaten by a rhino while shopping in London’s Regent Street.

They treat him like a slave until he is given some magic beans by a mysterious stranger.

He trips over and the beans land in the garden where the once barren peach tree produces an enormous fruit. And all the insects which live around the tree grow to human size too.

The evil sisters want to make money from the peach but James and his insect friends roll the peach away and begin an adventurous journey across the Atlantic, ending up in New York.

With the Dahl classics Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory currently adapted for the stage and being shown to critical acclaim in London’s West End, it was a real treat to see another of his books being reworked and enjoyed by a new, young audience.