Some stories refuse to stay on the page. The Hollywood Reporter’s Beyond the Book column explores what happens when books make the leap to screen and beyond — unpacking what stayed, changed, how it was done and why it matters with the creatives who made it.
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Before director Ben Gregor helmed Vertical’s The Magic Faraway Tree, he had never grown his own tomatoes. But during production, he found himself occasionally slipping away to the set’s greenhouse, where some of the most significant moments in the adaptation of Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood unfurl.
“It smelled so good and it was so quiet. I had so many people asking me questions all day long, but no one could find me in the tomatoes,” the director tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I didn’t know how to garden. Now every year I’m growing tomatoes. I’m harvesting them, I’m making pasta and pizza sauce. I’ve learnt that from Tim and what Andrew brought to him. We’ve all taken something away from the process of making this film that slightly changed our lives.”
In Blyton’s book, there’s no storyline involving tomatoes. Nor is there a father named Tim, as the story’s fictional parents largely operate namelessly in the background. But their three children — the eldest a boy, and two younger girls — eagerly explore a magic tree in the English countryside, taking them to faraway lands in the clouds. They’re joined in these adventures by a set of fantastical characters, who equally buoy Blyton’s original and Farnaby’s modern spin: Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Silky (Nicola Coughlan), The Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning), Mr. Watzisname (Oliver Chris), Angry Pixie (Hiran Abeysekera) and the villainous Dame Slap (Rebecca Ferguson).
