Lambeth Fantastical - October 2025
The Witches, Matilda and the Mews
In 1982 children's author, Roald Dahl moved into a gound floor apartment at 8 Turnchapel Mews, Clapham. Situated just off Cedar Road, the 19th century cobbled mews sits more or less on the boundary between Lambeth and Wandsworth. Dahl called it his little piece of London. It was here he created two of his most beloved and best known children's novels, both of which had October release dates.
The Witches was published on October 27th 1983, the year after he purchased the Turnchapel Mews apartment. As with most his children's fiction the book was illustrated by his long time collaborator, Sidcup born, Quentin Blake. The Witches was included in the BBC’s 2019 one hundred best novels list, and commemorated by the Royal Mail on a postage stamp in 2012. It has been made into a stage play, a BBC radio dramatisation, and an opera. The 1990 film version starred Angelica Huston as the Grand High Witch; a role reprised by Anne Hathaway in the 2020 remake directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Five years later, October 1st 1988, saw the publication of Matilda, again illustrated by Quentin Blake. The plot concerns a young schoolgirl with extraordinary psychic powers. Matilda ranked number 74 in the BBC list and was also commemorated with a postage stamp in 2012. The 1996 film version was directed by Danny DeVito and starred himself and his wife Rhea Pearlman as Matilda’s dysfunctional parents, along with Pam Ferris as the sadistic headmistress, Miss Trunchbull. In 2010 Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly premiered Matilda the Musical in Stratford upon Avon. It went on to become a huge West End and Broadway hit, and was then released as a movie version in 2022.
In between The Witches and Matilda, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, about a boy named Billy who befreinds a giraffe, a pelican and a monkey who work as window cleaner, was published in September 1985. Quentin Blake was again the illustrator.
Dahl died on November 23rd 1990 not long after the publication of his fourth Turnchapel Mews novel Esio Trot. The story concerns a lonely bachelor who enlists the help of his pet tortoise to help him woo the widow who lives in the flat below him. In 2015 Richard Curtis penned a BBC television adaptation which starred Dustin Hoffman and Dame Judi Dench, and was narrated by James Corden.
Dahl won television fame in the 1980's TV series Tales of the Unexpected, based on his short story collections of the same name. Two decades earlier in 1961 he was the host of the 14 episode TV series 'Way Out', a forerunner of 'The Twilight Zone', with stories in the scifi and horror genres.
October is of course the Halloween month where things go bump in the night.
Every Thursday throughout October and November I will be guiding an evening walk from Ludgate Circus to Aldwych (Fleet Street Fright Night (Penny Dreadfuls and Tales of Terror).
You can book a spot on this link.
There will also be two History of Horror walks for London Guided Walks starting from Charing Cross at 2pm and 6pm on Halloween itself - October 31st.
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