The Enormous Crocodile: Roald Dahl

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In the biggest brownest muddiest river in Africa (the author skipped commas there), “ The Enormous Crocodile” tells every animal he sees that he planned to eat children for lunch. His bragging was fortunate, for they all could warn children about every crazy camouflage disguise! The story is the titular enormous crocodile who is a very nasty and evil croc that likes to eat children. The animal-lover in me doesn't like that very much because crocs, much like sharks, have far too bad a reputation which is why many are endangered. Nevertheless, this story is pretty old for one, and I think the main reason the author chose a crocodile was it's outer appearance (suitable for many disguises to get close to the unsuspecting children) anyway. The story is about bullies and their ways of approaching victims and how watchful eyes and compassion from others can save the day - not to mention that the bad croc gets what it deserves.

The Enormous Crocodile is in the style of a picture book in contrast to Roald Dahl's other story books, illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was published on 1 November 1978. A recipe outlining how to make your own edible Enormous Crocodile appears in Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes. Look on Google Earth or another mapping tool to try and find the ‘biggest brownest muddiest river in Africa’. Dahl is a wonderful storyteller, even if the tales can sometimes flirt with the edge of the macabre. He utilises some of the wonderful things that children know about their surroundings and injects just enough 'spook' to keep children guessing. Will the child be saved or has the Enormous Crocodile found a way to win again? Delightfully simple with a quiver full of laughable moments, Roald Dahl level of writing is surely missed in modern children's storytelling.

The Roly-Poly Bird makes a surprising appearance in The Twits and he can also be seen in Dirty Beasts. With The Enormous Crocodile we wanted to make a show that speaks to four-year-olds, delights their older siblings and treats their parents to some brilliant music. The music is like Dahl’s stories in its capacity to capture audiences of all generations. It is at once dark, funny and compulsively moreish! Later on, the big crocodile walks to a children's playground located outside an old school. Using only an abandoned tree branch, (referred to as "a large piece of wood"), the cheeky crocodile disguises himself as a "see-saw", hoping to eat an entire class of children who want to ride on what they think is the "new see-saw" itself, but, despite the school children's teacher telling the children themselves that it is "a rather knobbly sort of a see-saw", he is just disturbed on the spot by Muggle-Wump the Monkey, who tells the whole class of children to "run, run, run" and that the big crocodile is not really a real see-saw and that he just wants to eat them up.

How has the illustrator shown motion when the Enormous Crocodile is swung around and around? Could you use some of these techniques to create your own pictures of moving objects? First of all, the crocodile heads to a coconut tree forest, not far away from a town and disguises himself as a small coconut tree with branches and coconuts, hoping to eat a pair of children, Toto and Mary, but is exposed by Humpy Rumpy.Words spoken by the crocodile in the book, "I'm going to fill my hungry empty tummy with something yummy yummy yummy yummy!", displayed in the Dahl sculpture in Cardiff Muggle-Wump the monkey also appears in The Twits in which he is accompanied by a whole family of Muggle-Wumps. A monkey which looks like Blake's illustration of exactly the same character also appears in The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me.

This new musical version of Roald Dahl’s snappy picture book, about a large hungry crocodile searching for a child to devour, puts global contemporary music and puppetry at the heart of the production. The crocodiles use words like ‘tough’, ‘chewy’, ‘nasty’, ‘bitter’, ‘juicy’ and ‘yummy’ to describe how children taste. Can you think of other words to describe different tastes?A spectacular large-scale circus, which is currently in development, inspired by Roald Dahl’s stories and featuring a range of beloved characters. The above video may be from a third-party source. We accept no responsibility for any videos from third-party sources. Please let us know if the video is no longer working.