EF Oxford’s West End trip to see Matilda the Musical

Last weekend, a group of students and staff spent the afternoon at the Cambridge Theatre in London watching the Royal Shakespeare Company’s multi-award winning stage musical of Matilda. Considered a Modern Classic, Roald Dahl’s Matilda is an English children’s novel, yet as our students proved it has been read and loved throughout the world.

Here is an account of the trip from first year student Mar Conesa Oton:

On Sunday October 18th 2015, we went to see the musical “Matilda”.

My expectation at first, was that it was just a musical which has become famous because children were starring in the play. But when you see the quantity of prizes that this musical has won, you start asking yourself why does everyone love it so much? It seems to be a musical for kids but is it really just a musical for kids?

The musical started with a “normal” phrase; ‘My mommy says I am a miracle’. Apart from the fact that the phrase was sung by 9 year old children (who acted in an absolutely brilliant and amazing way throughout the play), the laughs came out from the mouths of adults.

The Roald Dahl book (1988) on which this staggeringly successful stage show (2010) is based, is the story of a miracle child. Matilda Wormwood, who has read since she was five but has the misfortune of being born to a mother and father who basically despise her talent.

The story is about Matilda, that special girl with a not normal intelligence for her age. Her teacher was the only person who really took care of her and who really saw that this little girl had a special talent which made her absolutely unique. On the other hand, her parents despise her talent, but she is that special that she wants the best even for the people who are bad to her, even her parents. That made us think how nice she is even to the people that are the most destructive.

In my opinion, this play makes your imagination travel to your childhood where everything was like a song, where each of us were as special as your parents told you and where there were no rules or limits and a simple girl could be more intelligent than the Russian mafia. I think the play was so helpful to us, it made us feel, as EF Academy says, like ‘there are no limits’ and that you can achieve any achievement in your life.