THE junior play at Mount House School this year was the Roald Dahl's classic 'James and the Giant Peach', in which the four-year-old James Trotter is forced to live with his two horrible and abusive aunts — Spiker and Sponge — after being orphaned.

Around the house James is treated as a drudge, beaten for hardly any reason, improperly fed, and forced to sleep on bare floorboards in the attic. One summer afternoon James, played superbly, stumbles across a strange little man who gives him a sack of tiny crocodile tongues, promising that if he adds water and hairs from his own head, the result will be a magic potion which, when drunk, will bring him happiness and great adventures.

On the way back to the house, James trips and spills the contents of the sack onto the peach tree outside his home, which becomes enchanted, and produces a peach that just keeps on growing.

The aunts, played by Lara Inglis-Jones and Ottilie Whitbread, make money off the giant peach while keeping James locked away, until one night he ventures inside a juicy, fleshy tunnel which leads to the hollow stone in the peach. There he meets, befriends and joins forces with a band of insects, also transformed by the magic potion. They contrive to release the peach from its tree, and it rolls into the sea, running over the aunts in the process.

After further adventures, the giant peach is towed by seagulls to New York, where James and his friends are feted as heroes, and go on to lead happy and successful lives in the United States of America.

The entire cast performed with great enthusiasm and humour, though special mentions must go to Helen Jackman, as the worm, and Jack Sharp, who played the centipede.

The show, which played over two nights to packed houses in the Wortham Hall, was directed and produced by teachers Suse Hammond and Chloe Grub, while parents and teachers contributed costumes, scenery props and make-up, and the children themselves operated the lighting and worked tirelessly behind the scenes.