It has won 85 international awards (including 16 for Best Musical), and now the RSC's touring production of Matilda the Musical is coming to Milton Keynes Theatre - the curtain rises in the new city o Tuesday (June 5).
The story of the little girl who escapes her abusive parents in the pages of books, before they pack her off to a school run by the ghastly Miss Trunchbull is a classic, and a favourite with audiences the world over.
It has already wowed on Broadway and enjoyed a record run in the West End, and after being charmed by a cast of clever kids in a matinee production, I caught up with Dennis Kelly, the creative who turned Dahl's words to theatre gold, writes Sammy Jones.
In preparation for the work, Dennis was granted access to Dahl's working hub.
"I went to his shed," he starts, "You walk down this beautiful tree lined avenue and you find this dirty shed that he used to write in.
"He'd have the blinds drawn and everything, and I really understood it, because I think he wanted to shut out any distraction and live in his imagination in the moment when he was writing..."
Matilda has been wowing audiences for years now. Dennis worked his magic on the words, and Tim Minchin whipped up a storm with some of the catchiest songs figuring on any West End stage.
But when Dennis was first tasked with turning Dahl's brilliance into stage success, there was no director or composer.
And the production was an RSC Christmas show, first and foremost. At that time, Broadway and the West End weren't really factors.
"I threw myself at it really," Dennis tells me, "When they asked me to do it, I didn't know Matilda, I knew of it, but I was a bit older so I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Henry Sugar.
"I grew up with Roald Dahl, so it was an amazing thing to do.
"There are moments when you realise this show means a lot of things to a lot of people, and you think 'I'd better get this right,' but you can't get too precious with it, otherwise you'd screw it up!
"I did about three drafts and took a year on it...the voice of Roald Dahl is so powerful that he's in all of us really."
Given his career, you'd probably imagine that Dennis grew up surrounded by page-turners. Not so.
"There weren't really books in my house," he admits, "...that makes me sound like some Dickensian peasant, but we didn't read books. Outside of school, the first book I read happened to be The Lord of the Rings. I read it in about three weeks and then read it again because it was so brilliant.
"Roald Dahl's work is very clever, because he doesn't go on about books too much, he just mentions them occasionally."
Dennis might have penned the stage version, but you'll seldom find him seated in the West End watching a performance these days.
"Hardly ever," he says, "...because I'm not very useful if I watch it now. There was a moment when I was very useful, then a moment when I was less useful and now I'm worse than useless!
"Over the last four or five years I have seen it so many times that it's probably best to leave it alone now."
A man in demand, Kelly is currently working the second World War Z and something so hot that he can't reveal just yet.
But the chances are it'll be tapped into his laptop in a cafe environment - his favourite place to write: "I write in cafes a lot," he reveals.
"Left to my own devices I'll sit around scratching my arse all day - in a coffee shop you feel a bit guilty doing that. And I like to reward myself with food at the end of it. I am a very simple man!
"You have to treat writing like a job. You can't sit around all day and wait for inspiration, because who knows when that is going to come along?"
But while Dennis might have moved on from the stage show, Matilda the movie is on the horizon too.
Why does he think the story has proven to be such a smash hit?
"There's something about a story of a little girl who is not going to take it anymore that is really appealing," he thinks.
"I wrote it and know what is happening, but I say 'Go on, tell her what for!'"
> Matilda shows at Milton Keynes Theatre between June 5 and June 30, 2018.
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