With Cameron Mackintosh recently finding a loophole around having to give them a cut of the
Les Misérables profits, it's not surprising if the RSC are on the lookout for another big musical earner to replace it, and join
Matilda as a way of bankrolling some of their less commercial work. And it's definitely the latter show they have in mind with this new musical of David Walliams' popular children's novel
The Boy in the Dress - just as Walliams' books themselves invite a Roald Dahl comparison by using Quentin Blake illustrations, so Robert Jones' colouring-book design for Gregory Doran's production instantly calls to mind the company's last big musical juggernaut. Mark Ravenhill (book,) Robbie Williams, Guy Chambers and Chris Heath's (music and lyrics) adaptation opens in a nameless English town, the setting for a family to explosively break up as a woman walks out on her husband and two young sons.
