A giant calumny

Was a London audience quietly nodding along with Jew-hatred on stage?

John Lithgow as Roald Dahl in Giant

This an expanded version of my column in today’s Times UK (£)

Last week I finally got to see Giant, the much-acclaimed play by Mark Rosenblatt about the antisemitism of the children’s author Roald Dahl.

It’s superbly written and magnificently acted. But I found watching it in a London theatre deeply uncomfortable.

The audience laughed sympathetically at the on-stage Dahl putting down the Jewish woman who objects to his rampant Jew-hatred. Was the audience actually nodding along to what he was saying?

For some of his vile lines are what British Jews are now hearing as a matter of unexceptional routine.