Johanna Coe’s book of designs to be realised. The Costumes department at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London The Costumes department at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London The Costumes department at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London After promising Ariel legs in exchange for her voice, Ursula plots to steal King Triton’s trident and become ruler of the ocean. Accompanied by her two pet eels and a catchy villain song, this antagonist is the perfect mix of evil eccentricity and fearsome flair. Cut out your oval. Sew it almost all the way around, leaving room to inside it out and then hand finish the final hole. Your cape is done. Disney characters can have some simple and easy-to-copy outfits, and most of them are based on books.

From top) Johanna Coe and the team customise shoes and hats in the National Theatres’s costumes and dying department Look through EVERYONE'S wardrobes. Dad's tie may make a great Penny Crayon costume and an apron could be fashioned into an Alice in Wonderland dress. You won't have to go to Infinity or beyond to make your kid a great Buzz Lightyear costume this World Book Day, you just need this easy-to-follow guide! Top tips for making World Book Day costumes The production team is one of the biggest to work at the National in some time, with each department facing a series of unique and enticingly baffling challenges, most linked directly to Dahl’s singular plot: how to help tap dancers perform with giant marshmallows balanced on their heads; how to animate a show led by two children, who spend most of the show transformed into mice; how to handle a Grand High Witch with a fondness for zapping her foes. And, above all, how to manage all these challenges while adding a whole lot of song and dance into the mix. The Costumes department at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. LondonFold the two pieces of fabric in quarters and use chalk to trace an arc that will create your oval. The cape is almost a circle but since the fabric is 60 Inches wide and two yards is 72 inches but you've removed 6 inches, your oval will be roughly 60x66. Start with a stripey jumper. It can be the start of many an easy costume including Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, Where's Wally, or Horrid Henry. Next sew 6 snaps to the corset and their corresponding halves to the cape. Make sure you have enough fabric that you can have a "hood" on your cape and then drop it and not have it drag on the ground. It is not quite the midpoint, but it will vary on your body depending on your height. If you're after more book-smart ideas on how to make easy World Book Day costumes, we've got you covered! Here are just some of our vital tips for making easy and affordable costumes for World Book Day: I won't forget how [Nicolas Roeg] helped me with a difficult monologue when I was so uncomfortable and tired of being encased in rubber under hot lights for hours that the lines had ceased to make sense to me and all I wanted to do was cry.

Some of the kids will be hidden inside a rather grand purple dog cage that appears near the beginning of the show. “The dog cage is one the spookier elements in the opening song,” enthuses the deputy production manager Zara Janmohamed. “There’ll be a kid inside the cage and then the kid becomes something else. It’s chilling – but in a fun way.”Anjelica Huston is no stranger to sitting in a makeup chair for hours on end to pull off the look of her iconic characters, but the process of getting ready for the reveal of the Grand High Witch in The Witches took things to the next level. In a TV3 interview about the legacy of the 1990 horror-comedy, Huston revealed that she would have to spend upwards of 11 hours each day applying makeup and the prosthetics required to pull off the look of a grotesque witch, stating: Adapt a PE or sports kit, or their school uniform - think Football Academy for sports kit, Harry Potter and St Trinian's for the uniform. he pyrotechnics department at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London The pyrotechnics department at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London Born to Endora and Maurice 400 years ago, Samantha vows to give up magic and live a normal life with her mortal husband and children; Darrin, Tabitha and Adam. Of course this doesn’t always go to plan! Once you snap the cape onto the corset, tie the purple belt around it in a knot and fasten it on with two brooches

Then there are the more nuanced complications that come with staging the story today. Dahl’s book has been accused of being misogynistic and antisemitic (the witches’ long noses are seen as problematic, as is the idea of a secret cabal with exceptional riches and influence). On top of this, there are Dahl’s more openly antisemitic outbursts to consider, as well as the recent furore over the publisher Puffin’s decision to quietly edit out some of the more problematic elements from Dahl’s writing. WIgs, hair & make-up (WHAM) at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London Hair roots. WIgs, hair & make-up (WHAM) at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London WIgs, hair & make-up (WHAM) at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London Get the face paints out. Book characters can easily come to life with cute painted faces. Think The Tiger Who Came to Tea or the Cheshire Cat. Get creative with cardboard. There's almost nothing you can't make with some cardboard, scissors, and a good idea. The most important thing to remember about the Grand High Witch is that she's just plain mean. She sure doesn't try to hide it, either. She's always yelling, calling her fellow witches "idiots" (9.36) and "blithering bumpkin[s]" (8.34) and other things of the sort. When you think about it, though, any creature who can kill a child is clearly mean – and then some – so why is the Grand High Witch any different than the other witches? Well, in some ways, she's not. She's just our scapegoat – we blame everything on her.Behind the scenes at the wigs, hair and makeup (wham) department, including a collection of authentic roots to base the designs on The costumes department at work on the stage wear, including Johanna Coe’s book of designs that are still to be realised Set Design/set painting at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London Set Design/set painting at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches Set Design/set painting at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London When we first meet the Grand High Witch, she is young, pretty, and stylin'. That doesn't last long, though. When she takes her mask off, she becomes the most atrocious thing on the planet. The narrator uses a whole bunch of adjectives and similes to describe her, but he pretty much sums it up with "worm-eaten" (7.7). Nothing alive should look like it's worm-eaten.

Roald Dahl, would also die later that year on November 23, 1990, in Oxford, England, after battling a rare blood cancer, according to a Washington Post obituary. Unlike Jim Henson, Dahl would live long enough to see The Witches get released in theaters, even if he didn't agree with the changed ending. Grace Cowie in the pyrotechnics department; the mice are controlled over two separate radio frequencies in case one goes downThe Grand High Witch’s head mould and death mask, plus a mood board of potential looks for the scary reveal All of the makeup, prosthetics, and hot and bright lights on the set of The Witches couldn't have been something that was fun to endure, and at one point during Eva Ernst's transformation into the Grand High Witch, during her monologue to be exact, it proved to be a little too much for Anjelica Huston as she remembered in her memoir, Watch Me, where she wrote that director Nicolas Roeg was her saving grace during one of her toughest moments on set: Samantha Stephens is the protagonist of Bewitched, an American sitcom which ran from 1964 to 1972. Played by Elizabeth Montgomery, this witch is known for casting spells with the wiggle of her nose. The armoury and pyrotechnics department have been testing their robot mice during matinees of Dear England to see how they cope with the concrete environment, busy crowds and other potential interference The Grand High Witch mask. Wigs, hair & make-up (WHAM) at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches A mood board for the Grand High Witch mask design. Wigs, hair & make-up (WHAM) at the National Theatre, during the creation of the National Theatre’s newest production The Witches. London