‘This event was epic!’ Roald Dahl’s Most Villainous Villains…

This event was epic. Although the author wasn’t there (Roald Dahl is dead, you know) it was really fun and showed that you can do really good events without the author having to be there.

Lindsey Russell from Blue Peter chaired this panel-type show. We really like Blue Peter in our house – Lindsey and Radzi are our favourite presenters.

Basically the four sort-of contestants had to come on to the stage and argue why their Roald Dahl character was the MOST VILLAINOUS. And Lindsey had to stay completely neutral which was probably quite hard for her I think. There was:

Author Jeremy Strong – Miss Trunchbull

Author Guy Bass – The Giants (not BFG)

Author Anna Wilson – The Twits

TV presenter Katie Thistleton – The Grand High Witch (I saw her earlier at the David Walliams event too)

At the beginning each ‘contestant’ did a speech about why their villain is the worst of them all. This was good because you got to see how passionate they were. Guy and Jeremy put a lot in their speeches, Guy was getting carried away with his piece and Jeremy had obviously thought his through very carefully and his speech was very clever. We had to BOO the loudest for the most villainous villain (Jeremy won that round).

There was also a quick fire round where they had to answer questions on Roald Dahl (general knowledge) and they all had buzzers which sounded the same.

Then came the questions. My friend Ted got to ask a question (what is your favourite Roald Dahl book?). It was funny when someone right at the back jumped up and down on his chair to get noticed and Lindsey decided it looked fun and did the same.

My highlight was probably meeting Lindsey and having my photo taken with her and my friends and brother (he’s second from the right). Lindsey was fab and got the audience shouting and voting. My mum said there was a wedding downstairs during the event and they could probably barely hear each other say “I do” because of the shouting!

My brother’s highlight was that Jeremy Strong won as Jeremy was very funny.

But, overall it was all really good!

By Betsi Ifans

Photo caption: L-R: Ruby, me, Lindsey, Twm (my brother), and Ted