100 Fun Facts About Matilda

In Matilda, what does Matilda hide up the chimney to fake a ghost?

A talking parrot: hidden in the chimney, its voice first makes her parents think burglars have broken in, then sends the whole family fleeing in fright.

Where did Matilda author Roald Dahl write most of his children's books?

A hut in his garden at Great Missenden, built after he saw the poet Dylan Thomas's writing shed; he worked with the curtains drawn so the squirrels in the orchard couldn't distract him.

In Roald Dahl's novel, what is Matilda's surname?

Wormwood: her parents prefer television to books, and her father calls her a liar and a cheat when she works out his day's profits in her head in an instant.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, which game is Matilda's mother out playing while her small daughter is left home alone?

Bingo: with her mother out playing every afternoon, four-year-old Matilda walks to the village library on her own and starts reading her way along the shelves.

In Matilda, which Dickens novel does the village librarian give four-year-old Matilda as her first grown-up book?

Great Expectations starts a run of grown-up reading: by the time she is five, Matilda has worked through Hemingway, Orwell, Faulkner and Steinbeck.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what is the name of Matilda's kindly class teacher?

Miss Jennifer Honey spots Matilda's gifts on the first day and asks to move her to the top form; when the headmistress refuses, she quietly gives her advanced books to study in class.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what is the first name of the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull?

Agatha Trunchbull once competed for Britain as an Olympic athlete; the ghostly message that finally breaks her nerve opens by calling her by that first name.

In Matilda, what is Miss Trunchbull's nail-lined punishment cupboard called?

The Chokey is so narrow, and so lined with nails and broken glass, that a child locked inside has to stand bolt upright for hours.

In Matilda, why does Miss Trunchbull hurl Amanda Thripp over the playground fence?

For wearing pigtails: the headmistress, who hates long hair, grabs Amanda by them and swings her round and round like an athlete's hammer before letting go.

In Matilda, what is Bruce Bogtrotter forced to do in front of the whole school?

Eat an enormous cake, his punishment for stealing a slice of the headmistress's own; to her fury he finishes every crumb, so she smashes the platter over his head.

In Matilda, what does Lavender slip into Miss Trunchbull's water jug?

A newt, caught in her own garden: Lavender slips it into the jug before the lesson, and when it lands in the headmistress's glass it is Matilda who gets the blame.

Which power does Matilda discover she has in Roald Dahl's novel?

Telekinesis: it first shows when she tips over a glass just by staring at it, and it fades once she is moved to the top form, where her brain finally has enough to do.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, Miss Trunchbull turns out to be which relation of Matilda's class teacher?

Her aunt: she moved in to raise the teacher as a child, and now takes almost all of her niece's salary while living in the family house.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, how does Matilda's father earn his living?

Selling used cars, and cheating at it: he boasts to his children that he winds the mileage back on worn-out bangers before he sells them.

For Matilda's 30th anniversary in 2018, a statue showed her facing down which figure, chosen in a public poll?

Donald Trump topped a poll asking whom Matilda would stand up to today, so her statue in Dahl's home village of Great Missenden was set glaring at one of the president.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what kind of home does Matilda's class teacher live in?

A farm labourer's cottage, tiny and bare, rented for ten pence a week: it is all she can afford on the pound a week she is left once her salary has been taken from her.

Who directed the 1996 film of Roald Dahl's Matilda?

Danny DeVito also narrated the film and cast himself as Matilda's swindling father, moving Dahl's English village story to the United States.

Which child actress played the title role in the 1996 film Matilda?

Mara Wilson's mother was dying of cancer during the production, so the director took an unfinished cut to her in hospital; the film is dedicated to her memory.

Which actress played Miss Trunchbull in the 1996 film Matilda?

Pam Ferris meant to stay aloof from the child actors so that their fear would look real, but the plan collapsed when the bolder ones marched straight up to her.

Which song plays as little Matilda makes herself pancakes in the 1996 film?

Send Me on My Way by Rusted Root plays as Matilda, left home alone, cooks for herself, and returns at the end once her teacher has adopted her.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what is the name of the school ruled by Miss Trunchbull?

Crunchem Hall is run by terror: Matilda starts there late, is put in the bottom class, and her teacher cannot persuade the headmistress to move her up.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what does Matilda line her father's hat with to punish him?

Superglue: the hat stays stuck to his head all day and night, and next morning Matilda's mother has to cut it off, taking chunks of his hair with it.

Who wrote the music and lyrics for Matilda the Musical?

Tim Minchin, the Australian comedian and songwriter, collected the show's Best New Musical prize at the 2012 Oliviers and thanked its child stars as 'the little twerps'.

Which organisation first staged Matilda the Musical, in 2010?

The Royal Shakespeare Company first tried the show out for a winter season at its Stratford-upon-Avon home, then transferred it to London's West End the following year.

Which show's nine Oliviers in 2017 broke the record set by Matilda the Musical?

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child won big, and its director John Tiffany even beat himself to the directing prize: he was also nominated for The Glass Menagerie.

Four girls from Matilda the Musical jointly won which 2012 Olivier Award?

Best Actress in a Musical went jointly to Cleo Demetriou, Kerry Ingram, Sophia Kiely and Eleanor Worthington-Cox, who took turns in the title role and collected the prize together.

Which London venue hosted the West End debut of Matilda the Musical in 2011?

The Cambridge Theatre needed structural work before the production could move in, which pushed the show's first West End preview back by a week.

Who directed both Matilda the Musical on stage and its 2022 film version?

Matthew Warchus won the 2012 Olivier for Best Director for the stage show, accepting it by live link from New York, then made the film of it himself a decade later.

Who played the title role in the 2022 film of Matilda the Musical?

Alisha Weir, an 11-year-old from Dublin when she was cast, had first caught attention singing on Irish television's Late Late Toy Show.

On which streaming service did the 2022 film Matilda the Musical arrive in the United States?

Netflix, which had bought the whole Roald Dahl Story Company the year before, streamed it from Christmas Day 2022 after a short American cinema run.

In the 1996 film Matilda, the two men secretly watching Matilda's house work for which agency?

The FBI: two agents stake out the house over her father's crooked dealings, but when Matilda warns her parents, her mother insists the men are only speedboat salesmen.

In which country was Matilda author Roald Dahl born?

Wales: Dahl was born in Llandaff, Cardiff, in 1916 to Norwegian parents, who named him after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

What did Matilda author Roald Dahl do during the Second World War?

Flew as an RAF fighter pilot: badly hurt in a crash-landing in the Libyan desert, he recovered to fly in Greece, and writing up the crash later gave him his first published story.

Matilda author Roald Dahl wrote his first book, The Gremlins, for which film-maker in 1943?

Walt Disney wanted to film Dahl's tale of mischievous gremlins sabotaging aircraft; the movie was never made, but the picture book became Dahl's first for children.

For which 1924 sweet-shop prank were young Roald Dahl and four friends caned?

A dead mouse in a sweet jar: Dahl slipped it in among the gobstoppers, and the shopkeeper came to school to pick out the culprits, then sat and watched them caned.

Who plays Matilda's kind class teacher in the 2022 film of Matilda the Musical?

Lashana Lynch, better known for action parts in Captain Marvel and The Woman King, sings as the gentle teacher who ends up giving Matilda a home.

In Matilda, what does Matilda's mother tell her teacher matters more for a girl than books?

Looks: she tells the teacher a girl should care more about looks than books, because they are what will catch her a good husband one day.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, who is the village librarian who starts four-year-old Matilda on grown-up books?

Mrs Phelps, astonished to see so small a child arrive alone, lets Matilda read there every afternoon and later tells her she may borrow books to take home.

At the 2013 Tony Awards, Matilda the Musical lost Best Musical to which show?

Kinky Boots took Best Musical, but Matilda's four young leads, who alternated in the title role, did not go home empty-handed: they were given a special Tony honour of their own.

In the climax of Roald Dahl's Matilda, what writes the ghostly message that frightens Miss Trunchbull away?

A stick of chalk writes on the blackboard, seemingly by itself, as the ghost of her teacher's dead father, ordering the headmistress to hand back his daughter's house and wages; she faints, then flees.

Matilda author Roald Dahl also wrote the screenplay for which James Bond film?

You Only Live Twice (1967): Dahl called it Ian Fleming's worst book, with no plot fit for a film, so he invented most of the screen story himself.

Who illustrated the original 1988 edition of Roald Dahl's Matilda?

Quentin Blake returned to her in 2018, drawing a grown-up Matilda as an astrophysicist, a world traveller and chief executive of the British Library.

Which actress played Miss Trunchbull in the 2022 film of Matilda the Musical?

Emma Thompson played her in heavy prosthetics; the part had first been announced for Ralph Fiennes, since on stage the headmistress is usually played by a man.

In Roald Dahl's novel, which country are Matilda's parents fleeing to when she asks to stay behind with her teacher?

Spain: with the police closing in on her father's crooked business, the family packs in a panic, and her parents agree to leave Matilda behind with barely a second thought.

In Roald Dahl's Matilda, what does Matilda secretly pour into her father's bottle of hair tonic?

Platinum blonde dye from her mother's bathroom cupboard: her father, vain about his thick black hair, rubs in the doctored tonic next morning without noticing.

Which playwright wrote the script of Matilda the Musical?

Dennis Kelly won the 2013 Tony Award for the musical's script, then rewrote it himself as the screenplay of the 2022 film.

Which actor won a 2012 Olivier Award for playing Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical?

Bertie Carvel, a man cast as the headmistress, took the role to Broadway the following year.

Which sweet-shop owner from Roald Dahl's memoir Boy is said to have inspired Miss Trunchbull in Matilda?

Mrs Pratchett was Dahl's name for a shopkeeper he remembered as mean and filthy; after a prank she picked the boys out at school and watched their headmaster cane them.

In Roald Dahl's novel Matilda, which deputy head takes over the school once Miss Trunchbull has vanished?

Mr Trilby turns out to be a capable, good-natured head, and one of his first acts is to move Matilda straight up to the top form.

In Dahl's first draft of Matilda, the heroine used her powers to help a teacher win money on what?

Horse racing: the draft's Matilda was a wicked child who fixed a race to clear a teacher's gambling debts, until Dahl's American editor urged him to make her the kind book-lover.

In Matilda, how is the headmistress Miss Trunchbull revealed to be related to gentle Miss Honey?

Her aunt is the truth Miss Honey confesses over tea: Trunchbull moved in when she was two, took over the family house, and still pockets nearly all of her niece's salary.

A statue marking 30 years of Matilda showed the heroine facing down which world leader?

Donald Trump topped a public poll asking who a grown-up Matilda would stand up to today. The temporary statues stood in the village where her creator had lived for 36 years.

In Matilda, what does Mr Wormwood mix into the oil to hush the worn gearbox of an old banger?

Sawdust, he boasts, costs nothing and keeps the gears quiet for about a hundred miles, long enough for the buyer to be far away. His small daughter tells him it is dishonest.

In Matilda, which pet does the heroine borrow from a neighbour's boy and wedge up the chimney?

A parrot called Chopper, hired for a week's pocket money, greets the family from the dining-room chimney. Her terrified parents decide the house has burglars, then a ghost.

In the novel Matilda, in which Olympic event does Hortensia say Miss Trunchbull once competed?

The hammer throw explains why she hurls pupils about: she likes to keep in practice, and reckons a large boy weighs about the same as the real thing.

In Matilda, what does the heroine squeeze around the rim of her father's hat as her first revenge?

Superglue fixed the hat to his head all day and all night, until his wife cut it away next morning and took a band of his hair with it.

In Matilda, which shade of her mother's hair dye does the heroine pour into her father's tonic?

Platinum blonde, extra strong, left his proud black hair the colour of his wife's, only dirtier. He demanded an emergency appointment to have it dyed back.

In Matilda, which game does Mrs Wormwood play every afternoon, leaving her small daughter alone?

Bingo kept her out every afternoon, which is how a four-year-old came to walk alone to the village library and work her way through its shelves.

In Matilda, which Dickens novel does the librarian pick as the four-year-old's first grown-up book?

Great Expectations took her a week of afternoons with the heavy book resting in her lap. She finished it, said she loved it, and asked whether Mr Dickens had written any others.

In the novel Matilda, what is the name of the heroine's older brother, heir to the family business?

Michael is a perfectly ordinary boy whose father coaches him to add up the day's profits. He alone waves goodbye as the family drives away for good.

In Matilda, which gadget does Mr Wormwood run backwards to wipe thousands of miles off a speedometer?

An electric drill hooked to the speedometer cable spins the dial back to about ten thousand miles in minutes. He then tells buyers the previous owner hardly ever drove.

In Matilda, what does Mr Wormwood tell his four-year-old to do instead when she asks him for a book?

Watch television, he says, calling her spoiled for wanting anything more than the set in the living room. That same afternoon she walks to the public library on her own.

In Matilda, how does Miss Trunchbull react when chalk writes a message from Magnus on the board?

She faints flat on the classroom floor, her face gone white, and a pupil helpfully empties the water jug over her head. Five teachers and the matron have to carry her out.

In Matilda, what happens to the heroine's strange power once she is moved up to the top form?

It disappears within weeks, and she is relieved to see it go. Miss Honey's guess is that a brain at last kept busy by hard lessons has no spare energy left over.

In Matilda, which lost document turns up after Miss Trunchbull flees, giving Miss Honey her home?

Her father's will is found by local solicitors, whose letter arrives soon after the headmistress bolts. It leaves Miss Honey the house she grew up in and his lifetime savings.

In Matilda, what does Miss Trunchbull smash over Bruce Bogtrotter's head when her punishment fails?

A china platter breaks over his head in front of the whole cheering school, but he does not even feel the blow. He had just beaten a punishment she was sure would defeat him.

In Matilda, which village librarian keeps a four-year-old supplied with grown-up classics?

Mrs Phelps is stunned by the child but decides not to interfere in another family's business. Instead she shows her that the library lets people borrow books and take them home.

In Matilda, what does ten-year-old Hortensia pour onto Miss Trunchbull's chair before prayers?

Golden Syrup squelched as the headmistress sat down, and the chair clung to her breeches when she stood. A boy told on Hortensia, who spent a day locked in the punishment cupboard.

In Matilda, which of her father's belongings does the heroine practise her power on for a week?

A cigar was about the right weight for what she had planned. After six days of practice in her bedroom she had it doing exactly what she wanted.

In Matilda, which kind of poem does the heroine recite about Miss Honey on her first day at school?

A limerick, which she at first refuses to say aloud because it has her teacher's first name in it. It praises Miss Honey's pretty face, and the teacher blushes while her classmates admire it.

In Matilda, what does Miss Trunchbull wrongly accuse the heroine of planting under her desk?

A stink bomb turned up in her study that morning, and she pinned it on the new girl purely on Mr Wormwood's word that his daughter was a bad lot. She wished she could still whip her for it.

In Matilda, what does Mr Wormwood call his daughter when she adds up his profits in her head?

A cheat and a liar, he shouts, sure she must have peeked at his paper from across the room. He had just boasted of doing the same sum on paper in under ten minutes.

In Matilda, how must Nigel stand in the corner after Miss Trunchbull inspects his dirty hands?

On one foot, facing the wall, is where he stays while she fires spelling questions at him. He gets them right, which only annoys her more.

In Matilda, which word has Miss Honey taught her class to spell with a rhyme about married women?

Difficulty is spelled out as a string of imaginary Mrs So-and-sos, and Nigel proudly sings it for the headmistress. She is disgusted that spelling should be taught with a song.

In Matilda, by what does Miss Trunchbull lift Eric Ink off the floor for misspelling a simple word?

His ears, she insists, are stretchy enough to take it, and she holds him up until he gets the letters right. When Miss Honey protests, she happily agrees the damage is permanent.

In Matilda, what does Miss Honey spread on brown bread at tea, a sign of how poor she is?

Margarine on brown bread is all she can offer the first visitor her cottage has ever had. Matilda, seeing how things are, takes care to say nothing that might embarrass her.

In Matilda, where does the water for tea come from at Miss Honey's tiny cottage?

A well outside supplies it, since the kitchen sink has no taps. Matilda is sent out with a bucket, and learns that her teacher washes in water heated on a camping stove.

In Matilda, what was the profession of Miss Honey's father Magnus before his mysterious death?

A doctor with a fine brick house, he died when his daughter was five. How he died was never properly explained, and nobody who knew him could believe the accepted story.

In Matilda, which kind of book of her mother's does the four-year-old heroine learn by heart?

A cookbook called Easy Cooking was the first one she got through at home. Once she knew every recipe, she asked her father to buy her another and was turned down.

In Matilda, which children's classic does the heroine tell the librarian she liked best of all?

The Secret Garden was her pick after she had read every children's book on the shelves, aged four years and three months. The stunned librarian steered her towards the grown-up section.

In Matilda, which author does the heroine fault for writing children's stories with no funny bits?

C. S. Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which she liked, but she tells Miss Honey he has no jokes. She says the same of Tolkien, arguing that children are less serious than grown-ups.

In Matilda, which American novelist does the heroine love without understanding all he says?

Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is among the classics she works through before she turns five. The librarian tells her not to worry about the parts she cannot follow.

In Matilda, in what does Lavender smuggle her catch from the pond at home into school?

A pencil box lined with pond weed did the job, and she told nobody, so that no one could give her away under questioning. Afterwards she quietly scooped the creature back into it.

In an early draft of Matilda, the heroine's powers helped a hard-up teacher to win at what?

Horse racing was the scheme, and that first Matilda was a wicked girl who tormented her blameless parents. Turning her into a book-loving innocent took more than a year of rewriting.

The library in Matilda was modelled on the one in which village, its author's home for 36 years?

Great Missenden also supplied the model for Mr Wormwood, who was based on a real local. The village now has a museum devoted to its most famous resident.

Which publisher's 2023 edits to Matilda swapped Kipling and Conrad for Austen and Steinbeck?

Puffin made more than sixty changes to the book, then promised to keep the original text in print too after writers including Salman Rushdie objected.

Which long-running BBC children's programme gave the novel Matilda a book award in 2000?

Blue Peter viewers voted it the book that made them laugh the loudest, in the first year the show's book awards were held. It had already won a British prize chosen entirely by young readers.

For Matilda's 30th birthday, her illustrator drew her grown up as an explorer, a librarian and what?

An astrophysicist seemed a natural job for someone so gifted at mental arithmetic, the artist explained. The three sketches became covers for special anniversary editions.

In Matilda, what does Hortensia sneak into every pair of Miss Trunchbull's knickers during a lesson?

Itching powder had the headmistress leaping up in the middle of prayers a few days later. With no proof at all she guessed the culprit, and Hortensia spent a second whole day locked in the punishment cupboard.

Matilda's name is thought to come from a comic poem, about a liar who burns to death, by which writer?

Hilaire Belloc included it in his Cautionary Tales for Children. Its lying heroine fits the first draft, in which Matilda was a wicked troublemaker rather than a bookworm.

Which comedian narrated the two-part adaptation of Matilda aired on BBC Radio 4 in December 2009?

Lenny Henry told the story in the Classic Serial slot, in a script by the playwright Charlotte Jones. Lauren Mote played the title role.

In Matilda, which poet's verse does Miss Honey recite as she and her pupil approach the cottage?

Dylan Thomas comes to her mind every time she walks up the lane to her door. Matilda, for all the novels she has devoured, is stunned: she has never heard poetry like it.

In Matilda, which Dickens novel does Miss Trunchbull recommend for its child-whipping headmaster?

Nicholas Nickleby and its brutal schoolmaster are her idea of good teaching, and she sneers that no pupil of Miss Honey's could ever get through it. Matilda quietly says she already has.

In Matilda, to which town did Miss Honey ride the bus at eighteen to train as a teacher?

Reading, forty minutes away by bus, was allowed only on condition that she came straight home each afternoon to do the housework. University was ruled out for the same reason.

In Matilda, which textbook does the heroine study while her class learns the two-times table?

Geometry came first from a pile Miss Honey borrowed from the senior teachers, along with French and literature. It was her answer to being refused permission to move the girl up.

In Matilda, who does Mr Wormwood tell buyers were the careful previous owners of his bangers?

Old ladies who hardly ever drove is his standard story, told once the mileage has been wound back to something respectable. His small daughter is the only one in the family who objects.

In Matilda, how did Julius Rottwinkle leave scripture class after Miss Trunchbull caught him eating?

Through the window he went, thrown clean out of the classroom by the headmistress herself. Hortensia tells the story to warn the new girls what they are in for.

In Matilda, what does Miss Trunchbull carry on stage when she calls up Bruce Bogtrotter in assembly?

A riding crop goes with her breeches and hunting-field look. Bruce knows the law forbids her to hit him with it, which is small comfort with someone so unpredictable.

In Matilda, which takeaway supper does Mrs Wormwood carry in on the night of the row about sums?

Fish and chips, picked up on her way home, were eaten in the living room as usual. Matilda found them awful, and spent the meal planning her next revenge.

In Matilda, what fuel for her lamp does Miss Honey buy with the little left after paying rent?

Paraffin and a few basic foods are all her spare coins stretch to. The cottage itself costs her ten pence a week, rented from a farmer she approached while out on a walk.