ADAM STAFFORD chats about MATILDA The Musical and a life in theatre

Interviewer: Pat Hayward 31st March 2026

Overture’s Pat Hayward talks to Adam Stafford about his role as Matilda’s father, Mr. Wormwood and a life in the theatre ahead of the musical’s return visit to Mayflower Theatre where the RSC production will open on 29th April and run until 17th May 2026.

PH: Adam, you’re a man of many parts, many talents. But for the moment, if we could start by just talking performance and in particular focus on your involvement in the latest touring production of Matilda and for those unfamiliar with Matilda, I can’t imagine there are many, could you tell us a little bit about the story and more importantly your role?

AS: Well, as you say, most people will know the story of Matilda. It’s one of Roald Dahl’s great classics that seems to have taken to the public’s imagination as so many of his stories do. It’s about this little girl, Matilda Wormwood, who grows up in this family with a father who’s a rather dodgy second hand car dealer, not the brightest cookie in the jar, and a mother who is very into herself, shall we say, and her looks. And she has her dance partner, Adolfo, and she goes off dancing. And both of them, it is fair to say they are not natural parents and do not recognise that Matilda is actually a little genius. From a very young age she teaches herself to read and she teaches herself to count. You know, she comes from quite a dark place. You have a very clever child, in what I suppose today would be a termed an almost abusive family. They think she’s stupid. And so she finds solace in a local library with a lovely Mrs Phelps. She takes herself off to the library and then goes to school, where the rather lovely Miss Honey takes her under her wing and recognises Matilda’s talents. The body of the piece, if you like, if the parents aren’t bad enough, is the headmistress of the school, Miss Trunchbull, who cannot stand children and is running this school. And then there’s a parallel story where in the library Matilda starts writing her own story, making it up as she tells Mrs. Phelps and it merges into an actual story. It turns out that Matilda has quite special powers. She’s a very special little girl. She can make things move with her mind. And it turns out the sort of denouement is that the story she thinks she has made-up is actually the story of Miss Honey’s family and Miss Trunchbull and it all comes to a sort of climax. By the time Miss Honey and Matilda work towards a satisfactory conclusion, shall we say they they get rid of the terrible Miss Trunchbull. And that’s sort of it, that’s it in its essence. And as I say, I play the father who is really not a good father at all. Not many redeemable characteristics just like the mother. And yeah, that poor Matilda has to confront again and again.

There’s an interesting piece that I found out about which I think is correct. And I always find this fascinating because I’m a great lover of Dahl. It is that in his original draft of Matilda. She was the baddie, the naughty child doing everything sort of bad and and upsetting everybody. And apparently it was Dahl’s American publisher who said, I think you’ve got this wrong. I think you need to make her the goodie. To begin with he fought the change, but then he saw the benefit of this and he changed the story accordingly. And of course, it’s become the huge success that it is. It slightly surprised me. I don’t know whether the draft was earlier than some of the other books, because I’ve done other plays like the non-musical BFG which I think was one of the first of Dahl’s adapted for the stage by David Wood, who then also did the Witches. And of course, in a lot of Dahl’s books, the children are the heroes. And I think that’s one of the things that make these books so popular. As he’s quite dark and irreverent. I think adults love reading these books to children as much as the children love hearing about the child heroes, if you like. That’s probably part of the success of Dahl. But anyway, that’s the basic storyline and a bit of background.

PH: What, what attracted you, Adam, to the role in the first place?

AS: Well, I’ve probably just sort of hit on that before. I mean, I’m an actor. So I do character roles predominantly. Yes, I’ve ended up doing a lot of musicals, although I’m not not particularly musical. I can put a song over. But of course, I’ve been terribly lucky because I’ve found this sort of niche where a lot of musicals, you know, have significant character roles similar to ones that I’ve done, Spamalot, Beauty and the Beast. I’ve just finished playing Spy in the National tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that we’d finished just before we started this, Then in Chicago, I played Mr Cellophane, you know, they’re all character parts that have a certain amount of comedy to them. And I think going back, I used to do a lot of character roles like in the BFG and The Witches. I have done a lot of family shows and shows for younger audiences and I kind of just gravitate towards those characters. So when the opportunity with Matilda arose I sort of fitted the bill for Mr Wormwood and you know, I just wanted to become part of this really great production. I genuinely mean that I think this is one of those productions where Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly coming together with Matthew Waters, the director and Peter Darling’s choreography, Rob Howell’s set and all those that I’ve known for many years, like the great Christopher Nightingale, who did the orchestrations and the additional music, just make it work. You know, I think that team are just so strong and obviously with Tim Minchin’s musics and lyrics it becomes just a beautifully crafted piece of musical theatre that has been an absolute joy to do because it’s a really strong company, this touring company. You know, we’re all very proud of the production and we feel there’s a responsibility to put it over at every single performance. So to be part of that sort of machine, if you like is really thrilling for us. And that kind of plays out because we just finished in Edinburgh, which is 3,300 seats. Almost every show was sold out. And you’ve got some really little children and it just holds them, if we’re doing our jobs properly, you know, they are spellbound and we get a lovely response at the end. I think it’s storytelling at its finest, musical theatre form.

PH: You’ve got a tremendous track record with big, big touring musicals. What sort of impact do these large tours have on personal life?

AS: You don’t have much of one. I’ve been touring not just in big musicals, but in plays. I mean, I won’t actually tell you my age, but I have been doing this now for over half a century in one form or another. I started very, very young and, and of course, touring has been a very big part of my life. And it is a very specific, it’s a very specific way of life. I mean, I am not married, so, you know, I’ve got lots of family in different countries. But you know, it is life on the road. It is a very specific lifestyle. You have to sort of drop everything and then you pack the car up or however you travel, the train or whatever. And you do live out of a suitcase. But it’s attractive. It’s just a lifestyle, one that I’m used to. I mean, I also think probably I’m very lucky because I’m a man of a certain age now. And I think when people get to a certain age and you have families, quite understandably, a lot of actors don’t want to tour, particularly on these long jobs. A lot of of plays might tour for three or four months and most can sort of swallow that. But this is a year and a half’s contract, you know, and that’s hot off the back of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. That was just over a year’s contract. So, you know, by the time I finish Matilda, it will have been 2 1/2 years on the road. And it is a lifestyle. But you know I’ve just come back from Liverpool where I saw my partner. At the moment we are in Manchester which is great because we’re just down the road, an hour from Liverpool. It is definitely a way of life. But it’s one that I’m used to and kind of suits me, I suppose.

PH: But you have written and directed as well as performed. What came first?

AS: Acting. The performing came first. I mean, when I was very little, I literally started when I was 7 years old and I went to a local theatre school that has just closed a main part of it. I lived in Maidenhead, just outside of Windsor, down South. And, when I was at primary school, I mean, this is one of those stories that is probably quite familiar. I was six or seven years old and was doing the nativity and apparently went up to my headmaster and demanded to know why I was the 53rd shepherd from the back. And I rather thought I should be either the little baby Jesus or Joseph when I said, well, I’d even put a dress on and be Mary. But I did want one of the leading parts. So he said to my parents, I think Adam might like acting. And there was a local theatre school called Red Roofs, which was in Ivan Novello’s old country house just outside of Maidenhead. And there was a very lovely woman, bless her, who died just a couple of years ago in her 90s who started me off. And she was a teacher and I used to go for an hour on a Saturday morning for drama. But everyone that went to the school just for part time were were put on her books. She had an agency and I was put up for parts and I just used to get them. So I literally started my first professional job when I was 7. I made my first film Peter Pan, when I was 9, which was a musical film. It dated very quickly, of course, being in the 70s, but that was music by Tony Newley and Leslie Bricusse; Danny Kaye was Captain Hook, Mia Farrow was Peter Pan. It was Nick Lyndhurst’s first job. Nick is 4 years older than me, he was 14. So I made my first film then and in my O level years, I was a very bad student, but I spent my 2 years as the youngest member then of the National Theatre doing The Life Of Galileo and The Shoemaker’s Holiday. So I had a quite a varied beginning. And then David Wood, who I mentioned earlier, I must have been in my late teens, I got a job for David. He was sort of the National children’s author, he got his OBE for services to producing theatre. And I think he’s just picking up an Olivier lifetime achievement award this year. He gave me a role and then I became his assistant director and he taught me so much, not just about children’s theatre, but about the integrity of theatre.

I think a lot of his methodologies for directing and the way he conducted his business, such a lovely man and treated everyone with such respect and and took the work very seriously. Because, of course, in those days children’s theatre was seen as a sort of second division. It was a stepping stone to doing something better, you know, a cheap set, you could throw anything in front of children. And if you think about it, 40 years ago there wasn’t really a lot of quality children’s theatre. And now we end up with the likes of Matilda and incredible children’s books and family shows. And it is very much due to David and his company Whirlygig, which I became a member of, which was a company that put subsidised shows on for children, but in large scale venues and quality plays. And that really kicked me off and made me a director. And then I moved into pantomime, which you know, people roll their eyes, but it, it is peculiarly British. I think it’s a magnificent art form if it’s done well. It doesn’t need to have big celebrities in it, but you can tell a story and I’ve done Dame for 25 years. For 15 years, up north, I used to play opposite Billy Pearce at the Bradford Alhambra, the Palladium of the North. And then for the last eight years, well not the last two years because I’ve been doing this and I was doing Chitty, but I did 8 years at the Halifax Theatre for another company which I absolutely love and I direct them as well. So I would direct one and then be in one down at my local theatre in Bracknell. We used to win awards. So I’ve been very lucky, you know, and that’s when I started writing and doing adaptations and would take on other jobs, sort of national tours and international shows. So I consider myself very lucky. I love it because I do the job that I love.

PH: Matilda’s coming to Mayflower Theatre in Southampton at the end of May, have you played there before?

AS: Yes, it’s our next venue. I’ve played it several times over the years. The last was Chitty Chitty which opened at the Mayflower Theatre because Tom Sutherland is their artistic director and was the director of Chitty and I think Michael Rose was involved. So it was a Mayflower production. Well, that was a couple of years ago now. So that’s the last time I played it. But I have done various shows there over the years. Yeah. It’s lovely.

PH: So what gives you the most satisfaction out of the different roles that you perform – as an actor, a director, a creator?

I love that acting and directing are very different. I just love theatre. I’ve spent my whole life in theatre and the great thing that I love about directing is there are so many brilliant avenues. I’ve always felt a bit of a fraud because I never formally trained and you know, I never thought I’d do musicals. And then of course, I’ve done these amazing musicals with some incredibly talented people. And the thing about directing is, is that you can work with people, you can pick people and put a team together to present a show and you can help people achieve things that they didn’t know they could do.. I love being in the rehearsal room and trying to get the best out of people and trying to create, putting a show together, be it a play or a musical or what have you. I think it’s such a thrilling job. So I do get a big kick out of that and just working with talent is is an amazing thing. And then just getting back onto the boards and doing the best I can.

PH: So when the Matilda the Tour comes to an end any ideas what you’re going to focus on next?

AS: The tour wraps up in February next year. It’s a funny time because I went from Chitty straight into this, you know, and we’ve still got 8-9 months to go. So, not really, there was a panto in the offing when I signed up for Chitty I was just about to do a deal to write and direct the panto at the new Fareham Live. So, I had to turn it down, which was a real shame because we were literally just about to sign on the dotted line. I was going to direct it, co-write it with Eric Potts, and play Dame. I’d have loved that, it’s a lovely venue. In fact, funnily enough, when we opened Chitty at Mayflower Theatre, I popped down there and because we talked about it for the end of Chitty. But Matilda came in and this covers 2 Christmases. So that put it another two years out. So I don’t know. But I do know, there’s normally always panto to look at. I mean, there’s always a possibility. But all I would say is that Matilda is running in the West End. It’s the same production and the only other time Matilda has toured they have asked people from the tour if they’d like to go into town. Whether that is something that may or may not happen, I don’t know. So, we’ve got a bit of time. But to be honest, after 2 1/2 years on the road, I’m really looking forward to a few months off, I think by the time we get to next February I may have earned it.

PH: Adam I would like to say thank you very much for your time today. Very much appreciate it. I enjoyed chatting with you and look forward to seeing you in Southampton.