It doesn’t help that, as Wonka, Weisberg – who has a passing resemblance to Gene Wilder – gives an unsatisfyingly wonky performance. (Charlie’s loving mother and three other grandparents disappear at intermission never be seen again.) There’s a suggestion that Willy Wonka could be a father figure for Charlie, but this never really clicks given how close he already is to his grandfather Joe (James Young).
Greig has emphasized the boy’s imagination, which allows the show to work in the song Pure Imagination from the movie (which, like The Candy Man and The Oompa Loompa Song, are by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley), but it’s unclear why Veruca and Mike’s own artistic talents get punished while his are rewarded. Instead, we’re asked to root for Charlie, because he’s the title character and he’s penniless and the actor playing him seems to really, really want us to. Surely, they could have colluded against Wonka successfully. She’s a trained Russian ballerina who obviously has discipline he’s kind of Willy Wonka’s Wikileaks. Though, given Veruca Salt and Mike Teavee are more interesting than the overly sweet Charlie, it’s disappointing when they get bumped off. The second half of the Charlie musical was entertaining enough to make me stop trying to understand it. Is it an allegory for the chocolate industry’s history of colonialism and child labour – with the Oompa Loompas standing in to wreak revenge upon first-world consumers? It’s about a boy who wants to lift himself out of poverty by winning the lottery – and does and then it’s like a children’s slasher movie with kids biting it in imaginative ways at the hands of a mad candy man. While Dahl’s story is iconic and I, for one, loved it as a kid, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a strange plot when an underwhelming, over-amplified show like this gives you the chance to stop and think about it as an adult. Teavee, inexplicably costumed like its the 1950s, has a frenetic patter song about Ritalin and Xanax and gin that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Mostly, however, they are forgettable or hard to follow. (Director Jack O’Brien’s production, designed a little dully by Mark Thompson, lives in a time-space warp, a British-looking America where the internet exists, but a fancy candy bar is still a buck.)Įach of these “bad” kids is introduced with songs written by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman (the team behind Hairspray) clearly intended to be satirical, perhaps inspired by songwriter Tim Minchin’s work on the excellent Matilda musical.
The other two are Americans: Violet Beauregarde (Madeleine Doherty), a gum-addicted teen whose real vice seems to be Instagram and Mike Teavee (Daniel Quadrino), who is now a hacker as well as a TV addict. In this version, two are cultural stereotypes from cultures we still don’t mind stereotyping: Veruca Salt (the funny Jessica Cohen), a demanding ballet-dancing daughter of a Russian oligarch and Augustus Gloop (Matt Wood), a fat, sausage-eating Bavarian in lederhosen who burps and farts a bunch. When a contest is announced, Charlie wants desperately to find one of five Golden Tickets that provide entry to Wonka’s factory.Īs we await around for that eventuality, the four other kids who find Golden Tickets are introduced.
Young Charlie is obsessed with the reclusive Willy Wonka though he can afford but one bar a year − and loiters around a local candy shop (where Willy Wonka works in disguise) sniffing the merchandise wistfully. Bucket has, apparently, kicked it to boost our sympathy for the boy in this version penned by Scottish playwright David Greig.) Bucket (Amanda Rose) and four bedridden grandparents. We are introduced to the poor, 11-year-old Charlie Bucket (Henry Boshart, one of three boys alternating the part) who lives with Mrs.