Roald Dahl’s tales of dastardly witches, bad parents and greedy idiots have thrilled children and adults for generations, from James and the Giant Peach in 1961 through to Matilda and Esio Trot, the author’s final books before his death in 1990. His wicked sensibility had a way of creeping under your skin and leaving an impression.

Now, as Matilda the Musical, the West End and Broadway hit written by local hero Tim Minchin, opens at Sydney’s Lyric theatre, we ask leading Australian arts figures to name the Roald Dahl story that has stuck with them into adulthood. Read on, then why not share your own favourite Dahl in the comments below.

The BFG (1982)

Roald Dahl altered my childhood – by a long shot. He was a standard part of the culture. The BFG was huge for me, and George’s Marvellous Medicine and Danny, Champion of the World. I was 13 when Matilda came out, so I wasn’t reading Dahl by then. But in the early 1980s I loved him. I had a penchant for being a bit naughty and he felt a bit naughty. I even tried to write like him and got into trouble for putting naughty words in my stories.
Tim Minchin, comedian, actor and composer of Matilda the Musical

James and the Giant Peach (1961)

As a child I was entranced by the cover of my Puffin edition; a thousand seagulls tied to the stem of a giant golden peach with strings, carrying it high above the sea. I loved the idea that a cosy home might be made inside the seed – how wonderful it was to escape the cruelties of those nasty aunts, Spiker and Sponge! I remember feeling anxious as James and his band of giant insect friends were forced to eat the peach; I cared deeply about James and wanted him to find his way. Dahl’s story held all my fears, my hopes and my own dreams of shelter and escape.
Sofie Laguna, Miles Franklin award-winning author of The Eye of the Sheep

I had all the Roald Dahl books as a kid and loved his great, revolting villains – the Twits, George’s grandmother, the Grand High Witch and, of course, The Trunchbull. But it’s a quote from James and the Giant Peach that has always stuck with me because of its beautiful rhythm. “Let us roll! Let us bowl! Let us plunge! Let’s go rolling and bowling and spinning until we’re away from old Spiker and Sponge!” I’m still hoping to run away on a magical fruit ... and to play one of his villains.
Ash Flanders, actor and co-founder of Sisters Grimm theatre company

The Witches (1983)

Two Englishmen – Roald Dahl and David Attenborough – were the gods of my childhood. I would dream of sharks and polar bears and lemurs one night, and then vermicious knids and women with bald heads and clawed fingers and square toes the next. The Witches is the best of his creations for my money. It’s a strange, bold, dark book that manages to be a rollicking adventure and an existential treatise at once.
Ralph Myers, stage designer and departing artistic director, Belvoir

My favourite Roald Dahl book is The Witches. It terrified and excited me. All at once a heroic adventure and a nightmare. Anjelica Huston as The Grand High Witch [in the film version], for me, captured everything a Dahl villain should.
Eamon Farren, actor, The Present, Sydney Theatre Company

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)

Dahl’s stories are part of any childhood spent with words. Because his books are both funny and highly enjoyable, they enable children to become readers – to become excited by language. Learning happens while also having a good time.
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

The Twits (1980)

My favourite Roald Dahl story as a child was probably The Twits, although I also adored The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG. What Roald Dahl understood, like almost no other writer, is children’s utter fascination with all things nasty, revolting and taboo. I remember how much I loved the description of the rotting bits of food caught in Mr Twit’s beard and the despicable things that Mr and Mrs Twit did to one another. Dahl offered a fun but also seriously dark counter narrative to the wholesomeness and light that characterises a lot of children’s literature, and I love him for it!
Emily Bitto, Stella award-winning author of The Strays

The sense of humour contained within this book redefined the world for me.
Wesley Enoch, incoming artistic director, Sydney Festival

Fantastic Mr Fox (1970)

Like many children in Belgium in the 1970s, I grew up in a gentrified suburbia that was surrounded by nature and agriculture. Our house was a modernist bungalow but surrounded by fields and paddocks, all owned by Alphonse, a grumpy old farmer on clogs who would still work his fields with a workhorse and milk his cows by hand. The man would often scare us and Fantastic Mr Fox was just the kind of character you would love to see take on that farmer. Old Alphonse has long since died and, sadly, his fields have been cut up into neat housing plots by developers. Where would Mr Fox live now, I wonder?
Lieven Bertels, outgoing director, Sydney Festival

The Minpins (1991)

The Minpins was published just after his death and was his last piece of writing. Something seemed magical about reading a person’s final work. I loved it so much because the forest where the Minpins lived looked exactly like my own back garden. I was obsessed with the idea that nature contains little creatures that might one day become my friend so every time I was in the garden, I’d look closely at every little plant or tree or crevice, just in case something came out to say hello. It gave me an appreciation for the detail in nature I might not have had otherwise. Also, the hero Billy rides a swan. What child doesn’t adore the idea of that?
Julia-Rose Lewis, playwright, Between the Clouds to run at Hothouse from 25 November

Over To You (1946)

My folks fed me Dahl from day one. I’d consume it, regurgitate, then wolf it again. I remember the pain of not being able to pick a favourite. Fantastic Mr Fox, The Witches … the more I re-devoured the harder it got. So I climbed the “adult” shelves in our family’s bookstore and boggled at what I found: Uncle Oswald, Henry Sugar and Kiss Kiss (I still finger the spine of my battered first edition when I pass it). But it was Over To You, his collection of second world war pilot stories – their chilling blend of truth and madness, like war itself – that blitzed my 11-year-old brain. I had the chance to tell him it was my favourite. He signed my copy, grumpy, growling: “You’re too young for that stuff.” For months afterwards – a lifetime for a boy – I was champion of the world.

The inscription says:

To Toby
love
Roald Dahl

Toby Schmitz, actor, The Present, Sydney Theatre Company

• Matilda the Musical opens at the Lyric theatre, Sydney on 20 August