AMBITIOUS drama group, the Cradley Village Players will stage their most spectacular show ever this Easter, complete with a peach that glows, a peach that flies over the heads of the audience and a peach that rolls over members of the cast.

Adapted by world-famous dramatist James Wood from the ever-popular Roald Dahl novel, James and the Giant Peach, directed by Meg Wood, promises to be a wonderful treat for all the family.

When his parents meet an untimely end in a collision with a rhino, seven-year-old James Henry Trotter (Joanne Eldridge) goes to live with eccentric aunts Spiker and Sponge (Cress Dunnett and Poppy Stanley). They treat him horribly, making him do all the chores and never letting him play with other children. But James’s fortunes change after he meets an ancient mystic (Chris Lowder) who gives him a bag of magic that has the most amazing impact on everything it encounters - not least a passing peach tree.

With a gang of eccentric friends who include a violin-playing grasshopper (Tom van Vuren), a many-legged centipede (Bryn Batten), a blind earthworm (Bill Chadney), a ladybird (Poppy Stanley) and a spider (Cress Dunnett), James sets off on an incredible journey across the ocean to New York.

On the way, he encounters Vicki Merker as a roving TV reporter and Mollie Eldridge, Elenydd Batten and Alex Patterson as the officers of a transatlantic liner. The talented cast also include Archie Roberts, George Knowles and Lucy Hayes.

James and the Giant Peach is at Cradley Primary School from Tuesday, April 22 to Friday, April 25. Tickets available from cradleyvillageplayers.com, at the Cradley Butcher and from the school office.