Review: Matilda the Musical, JR

If you're looking for a challenging but rewarding musical to do with your KS2 pupils, then this could be the one for you. My mixed-age, rural primary school performed Matilda last summer, with Years 5–6 pupils taking the lead roles and Years 3–4 pupils taking the part of the choir. We had around 70 pupils performing all together.

This production was a Broadway Junior show and came from Music Theatre International. There are many shows to choose from, but we decided to go for something familiar as our first one. The website is great and easy to navigate – you can click on a show and immediately see the cast size, number of lead roles and a synopsis, as well as being able to listen to snippets of all the songs. The audition samples were very helpful for the singing and acting auditions, and the choreography videos were also excellent and helped us with some of the movement on stage. There are many other extras such as a customisable poster, a logo pack and digital backdrops, but we didn't use any of these.