"The BFG (Big Friendly Giant)" by Roald Dahl and adapted by David Wood.

Nottingham Arts Theatre Summer School.

Nottingham Arts Theatre.

All this week at the Nottingham Arts Theatre Summer School, these children have been learning everything needed to produce the one night only performance of "The BFG"; learning the script and everything else required to produce this end of the week show.

I'll freely admit that I have not seen "BFG" on stage, I have not read Dahl's book "BFG" and I've never seen the film "BFG", so this is my first experience of "BFG", and I loved it. And what I didn't know was that the "BFG" was actually seven stories, written by Dahl, and mashed together to make this very enjoyable adventure.

The BFG and orphan Sophie team up to save the children of England from the child-eating giants Bloodbottler, Fleshlumpeater, Bonecruncher, Meatdripper, Childchewer and Gizzardgulper. They are assisted by the Queen of England and the Heads of the Army and Airforce.

To set the scene of the Sophie snatch, Fergus Hillery, Emily Gretton, Hugo Corbett, Isabelle Bett, Bethan Styles, Violet Boyd, Jude Afzal and Seren Whistance demonstrated and described the scene.

Sophie, which takes two forms. to start with is a doll when she is captured by the BFG, but is voiced by, and later played by Zilpha Chisholm. Both doll figure and real life Sophie are dressed in a white nightgown, just to make sure that we make the connection.

The Big Friendly Giant (BFG) is played superbly by Daisy Hillery, and I do not know how she managed to remember the script so splendiferously, because anyone who knows the story, or seen the film, will know that it's on a par with "Trainspotting" the book by Irvine Welsh with the gobbledook language.

You could tell that these young actors were having a ball playing the giants, with some actors sharing the roles for different scenes.

Gizzardgulper was played by Frank Chisholm and Amelie Adams.

Childchewer was played by Mack Afzal and Edie McKenzie.

Meatdripper was played by Dylan Whistance and Violet Boyd.

Bonecruncher was played by Amelie Adams.

Fleshlumpeater was played by Olwyn Jones, Dylan Whistance and Bethan Sykes.

Bloodbottler was played by Edie McKenzie and Mack Afzal.

Butcherboy was played by Thomas Martin.

In the Dream Catching and Dream Watching Scenes, dad was played by Thomas Martin, Sam was played by Fergus Hillery and the schoolchildren were played by Seren Whistance, Jude Afzal and Hugo Corbett. Mrs Plumridge, the school teacher was played by Emily Gretton, and the Headmaster was played by Frank Chisholm.

The BFG and Sophie came up with the solution that the only way to stop the other giants eating all of the world's children was to get the Queen of England to do something about it by getting the army and the airforce involved.

The Queen Of England is played royally by Isabelle Bett. I loved the telephone conversation that she has with the Queen Of Sweden, played by Olwyn Jones, regarding the other giants eating the Swedish children, especially the giants who like a bit of Swede and Sour! Both accents were brilliant.

Mary, the Queen of England's maid, was played regally by Edie McKenzie.

Mr Tibbs, who also worked for The Queen of England, was played by Seren Whistance.

Head of The Army was played by Jude Afzal and Head Of The Airforce by Thomas Martin. Again, I loved their clipped British accents and, along with Jude's eye-rolling scene, brought smiles to my face in abundance.

There was a really clever way that the stage and the orchestra pit was used to demonstrate the pilots and winchers picking up the other giants, and keeping everything in proportion. And again, even more roles played by Jude Afzal, Fergus Hillery and Thomas Martin as the helicopter pilots and Mack Afzal, Frank Chisholm and Hugo Corbett as the winchers.

Learning one part in a week would do my head in, but when many of these young stars are learning several parts in just a week shows just how good this lot are, and I think I only noticed one prompt throughout, which is amazing.

Of course, it's not just the young cast who are amazing, so are the people on the other side of the curtain, who I know have put in twelve hour shifts every day to make sure that what we saw was a success, and to make the cast's experience such a great, and memorable one.

Marie Rogers (Director and Props), Oliver Read (Lighting), George Wilson (Sound), Selena and Yara Johns-Ramos (Stage Managers) and Mary Lobley (Prompt), and guess what? They get to do it all over again next week!

Apart from the sheer entertainment value as an audience member, I love to future star spot, and there were several young actors from the show that really threw themselves into it. And there is always one who catches your eye every single time. By the end of Act One, I was asking about one of the giants who, even when there was no script, just really got under the skin of the giant with their look, their facial acting, their sound and most of all their energy and character portrayal of just being a giant, as well as their script delivery. I had a feeling that I had seen them somewhere before. I found out, after all of the certificates and sweets had been presented, that Dylan Whistance had been in "Oliver" at the Arts Theatre previously. He's a star in a whole constellation of bright stars.

Next week's Summer School production is "We Love The Musicals" which will be performed on Friday 11 August.