Matilda the Musical

This A1+ worksheet is based on the trailer of the new Matilda musical, directed by Matthew Warchus and released on Netflix on 25 December 2022. It was adapted from Roald Dahl’s famous story and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Matilda the Musical.

The story is faithful to Dahl's orginal: Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinarly brilliant girl who absolutely loves reading, who is saddled with parents who hate books. She is delighted to start school, but Crunchem Hall is a terrifying place ruled by the casually cruel Ms Trunchbull. The original music and lyrics are by Tim Minchin. Ms Trunchbull is played by Emma Thompson, who seems to take particular delight in playing villains with frightening faces, while Alisha Weir as Matilda and Lashana Lynch as Ms Honey are as sweet and bright as she is revolting.

Your students may have read the book or seen the previous (American) film, if such is the case this trailer will not be spoilt as what matters here is building up vocabulary and expressing personal ideas.

Vocabulary and grammar.

• Personality description: a bookworm- a genius- a troublemaker…
• Relative clauses
• want to + vb

Pronunciation

• Stress in Matilda
• Compound nouns (headmistress, bookworm…)

Culture

Roald Dahl

 

There are lesson plans for using the book in class on the Roald Dahl website.