Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (UK Tour)

Unfathomably poor creative decisions are rife within this latest approach at adapting Roald Dahl's beloved tale, which sucks all life, magic and imagination from a source material that perhaps ought not be musicalised in the first place.

I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during its West End run back in 2016, and it was the show that made me fall in love with theatre; as a child I was captivated by its beauty, magic and sheer scale of the 'pure imagination' it inspired. Is it a perfect show? No. The structure is odd, the score is hit or miss and at times it feels tonally confused. But to 11 year old me? It was incredible. I wish the same could be said for this latest production of the show, in which every directorial decision appears just as bafflingly distasteful than the next, and the material is ruthlessly stripped of any charm, wonder or - quite frankly - any appeal in the slightest.

To begin with, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has never been the strongest of shows and in many ways begs its audience to ask the question, why? While the simplest answer to this would be 'the Matilda effect', there arrives one major complication: Matilda is a tale of surpressed emotion and feeling - ripe for musical adapation - meanwhile there seems to be little justification as to what a musical adaptation can add to the tale of Charlie Bucket. The result is a show that feels awkwardly structured and meandering; the entire first act consists of exposition and plot set up, and the latter half feels oddly episodic and aimless, acting more as a revue of sorts rather than a meaningful plot. It makes for an entirely disconnected and unempathetic narrative, and worst of all a show that is nothing more than boring.

'You ain't seen nothing yet!' exclaims Wonka at the close of act 1, and while that's absolutely true, unfortunately we'll continue to see absolutely nothing: the chocolate factory is completely void of any significant set whatsoever. While in the West End production, the disjointed factory section of the show was sugar coated with dazzling sets and spectacle, in this most recent revival the designers appear to have followed in the miserable footsteps of its Broadway iteration: giving us absolutely nothing. Some may point to the show's touring nature and claim that such a heavy reliance on screens allows for a lower budget and easier transportation, yet this seems not to hinder the production design if the first act - Charlie's house, the junkyard and the factory exterior are charming and detailed. Within the factory, Wonka's world of 'pure imagination' is revealed to be a embarrassing mess of projection mapping; if the projections were to be creative I may have fewer grievances, yet the images conjured are so awkwardly banal and downright ugly that one has to wonder whether the creative team was intent in creating such an eyesore.

So much of my frustration comes from the many needless alterations made to the show that degress it into a piece lacking any wonder or magic. For some reason unbeknownst to me, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has always appeared to be a show insisted on self sabotage, cutting its best songs (Juicy and Simply Second Nature), switching out jokes, and in this latest adaptation rewriting entire scenes, characters and plot points. These range from minor incoherent fumbles - Augustus Gloop being cast as skinny, yet still being subjected to now utterly confusing fat jokes - to disastrous misjudgements - the transition of Oompa Loompas into robots, while it may solve Wonka's dubious slave ownership, it equally turns the loveable and entertaining comic reliefs into menacing killing machines. A similar tonal shift is felt in Wonka, whose new characterisation appears to be a one-note portrayal of unhinged insanity and barbarism. Wonka's genuine adoration for imagination is perhaps his most important attribute: if the audience is to believe that Charlie would respect such a crazed maniac, we must believe that they share similar traits. So, when Wonka delievers Pure Imagination in his same, entirely mad persona, we fail to gain any empathy or understanding for the character that we so crucially require.

During the glass elevator sequence that acts as the anti-climatic finale of the show, I heard a young boy from behind me tell his parents 'you know none of this is real?' and to me that highlights everything that is wrong with this disastrous revival; the aim of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is to deliver on its thesis, that it is a tale that must be Believed to be Seen. So, when even the shows target demographic fails to believe in the magic that the piece ought to deliver, there's an undeniable failure at hand.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory continues its UK tour until February 2024.

https://charlieandthechocolatefactory.co.uk/ticket-information/

[Watched 13/07/23] Photography credit: Johan Persson