Francesca Wade 04 February 2016 7:00am GMT ‘Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it,” says Roald Dahl’s Matilda Wormwood. “Be outrageous. Go the whole hog.” September 13

will mark the 100th anniversay of Dahl’s birth in Llandaff, Cardiff, and it’s a motto that is probably in the minds of those organising “Roald Dahl 100”, the author’s centenary celebrations.

Dahl died in 1990, aged 74, but his beloved characters, madcap language and imaginative worlds have never ceased to inspire; 2016 is set to sizzle with phiz-whizzing events in his honour.

For those not yet conversant in Gobblefunk, June will see the release of The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary, illustrated by his collaborator, Quentin Blake, while a new edition of Dahl’s

the whole city in homage to its famous son. But the celebrations begin on February 10 at London’s Southbank Centre, where The Wondercrump World of Roald Dahl is set to dazzle visitors with

an interactive experience aimed at seven- to 12-year-olds that channels the writer’s playful spirit. Devised by Kate Rigby and Paul Denton, the immersive extravaganza takes guests on a trail

through Dahl’s life and imagination, encompassing seven rooms, all bursting with enticing detail. The journey begins in a cardboard cityscape, where shadowy images behind tiny lit windows

evoke the Buckinghamshire village of Great Missenden, where Dahl lived for 36 years, from the old petrol pumps that transmogrified into the home of Danny, the Champion of the World, to the

Crown House that inspired Sophie’s dour “norphanage” in The BFG. Escorted by an expert host, guests are led through a Twenties schoolroom, past a treacherous desert landscape conjuring

Dahl’s wartime experience as a pilot in the RAF (a plane crash in Libya inspired his first published story, A Piece of Cake). Then things turn uncanny, with a trip into a dark, magical

forest (where the Fantastic Mr Fox might dwell) towards a luminescent Giant Peach (which has a satisfyingly squelchy interior), along the Twits’ upside-down corridor and into a Victorian

library for a Matilda-style experiment in telekinesis. “It’ll be like stepping into the mind of Roald Dahl, and travelling through the gross and gory bits of his imagination,” says Laura

Dockrill, who scripted the part of a mischievous virtual narrator, voiced by the actor Peter Serafinowicz. “The further you go in, the more weird, bizarre and fantastical it gets.” Beneath

the fantasy is an element of fact: archival material – letters, drawings and objects – will be hidden along the way, “singing like little jewels” for children to find. ROALD DAHL'S TOP

10 CHARACTERS, CHOSEN BY MICHAEL ROSEN Dangling from the schoolroom ceiling are letters to Dahl’s mother (signed “love Boy”) from his days at boarding school; in one, the young Dahl

describes the first time he tasted the delights of Cadbury’s chocolate, from a tester box sent by the company for the schoolboys’ scrutiny. In pride of place in the BFG’s attic stands an

unassuming sandal: Blake’s original illustrations had depicted the giant in galoshes, but Dahl (who was 6ft 6in and had, says Dockrill, “humungous feet”) imagined him in different footwear,

and posted Blake one of his sandals to serve as an artist’s model. “The information is there, but it’s buried in this crazy, fun, naughty experience that’s theatrical and musical,” says

Dockrill. “It’s farts, bogeys, going upside-down, feeling as if your imagination has been set on fire – and knowing that that’s connected to books.” She hopes it will encourage children to

see that the most ingenious stories can derive from everyday experiences. “Roald Dahl didn’t set off to be a writer,” she says. “He was in the RAF, he was good at sport – but being a writer

grew in a natural way. All through childhood he used to embroider the truth a bit, because he didn’t want his mum to worry about him. We wanted to make that clear: we’re all weaving stories

all the time, even if we don’t call ourselves writers.”   The Wondercrump World tries to follow the four rules Dahl applied to his writing: that it should make the reader tense, enthralled,

laugh and squirm. “When I was at school and stuff was going over my head,” says Dockrill, “I could look across the classroom and see his books, and feel that there was something that

understood me.” Dahl’s books are sensual, narrated in giddy excitement, in dazzling – often invented – language. To enter his imagination is to enter a fantasy realm where expanding fruits

can provide sanctuary and ordinary bars of chocolate lead the way to extraordinary adventures. In translating Dahl’s vivid words into sights, smells, textures and surprises, the Wondercrump

World is a sensory experiment that would surely delight the great inventor as much as his fans. 30 great opening lines in literature FEBRUARY 10 - JULY 3, SOUTHBANK CENTRE, LONDON;

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