Roald Dahl’s Henry Sugar on Film

Although he is most famous for his children's stories, Roald Dahl wrote intriguing short stories for adults too. Director Wes Anderson, who already adapted Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox as an animated film, has now made four short films for Netflix based on four of the adult short stories. The first to be released, on 27 September, is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. This A2-B1 resource has students work with the trailer and an article.

Anderson takes us into a colourful and strange world where Henry discovers a man who can see without using his eyes..

These activities based on the trailer and an article  will enable your students to discover the character, his "discovery" and understand the plot.

Finally, they’ll have to gather their notes and voice their opinion in a written task.

Vocabulary and structures

• Describing people and events: présent (simple + be V-ing)
• Capacities/ possibilities : can / be able to / be allowed to..
• Passive voice : it is released, it was adapted from…
• Reactions: amazing, flabbergasting, incredible, fantastic, incredible…
• Opinion : I think, I believe, to my mind, in my opinion, I reckon…
• Justify: because, as, since, the reason is...

Pronunciation

• Tone et expressivity
• Aspirated /h/ in Henry, /ʃ/ in Sugar