The wonderful world of Willy Wonka
It’s the theatrical event of the summer, a keenly anticipated £10m production five years in the making and directed by the man whose last project – the Bond film Skyfall – has so far taken more than $1bn at the international box office. (So, no pressure then.)
Welcome to the wonderful, wacky world of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Director Sam Mendes had nurtured the dream of staging Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, first published in 1964, for a quarter of a century, ever since he was assistant director of the Chichester Festival Theatre.
‘Willy Wonka was a mythic figure for me as a kid,’ says Mendes. ‘He’s one of the great characters in western literature. He’s from a tradition of great showmen: magicians, every circus Master of Ceremonies and every onstage conjuror all the way back to Prospero. He’s part mad genius, part Salvador Dalí, part everyman, part Charlie Chaplin.’
But it wasn’t until 2007, when Warner Bros bought the rights for £500,000, that Sam’s seemingly impossible dream slowly began to become a reality. And now it’s to be found at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where advance ticket sales have already brought in millions of pounds and where the auditorium of 2,000-plus seats look set to be full for the foreseeable future.
The story is familiar. Five golden tickets are hidden beneath the wrappers of Willy Wonka’s delicious chocolate bars, five tickets that will change the lives of those who find them. The prize for the winning children is an invitation to walk through the imposing gates of Mr Wonka’s chocolate factory to meet the great man himself and to sample some of the magic inside.
Fountains of chocolate flow from the ceiling. Creatures called Oompa- Loompas create chewing gum flavoured like three-course meals. Squirrels are in charge of quality control. And, at the centre of it all swirls the mesmerising, occasionally menacing, figure of Willy Wonka himself, a man with a very clear idea of right and wrong.
For this is a morality tale. One child is a glutton. Another is impossibly spoilt. A third can do little other than blow bubblegum bubbles at all and sundry. A fourth is a foulmouthed brat hooked on new technology. Each will meet a grisly end appropriate to their flaw.
From left to right: Veruca and Mr Salt with the Golden Ticket; Mrs Gloop and Augustus; Director Sam Mendes
Then there’s Charlie Bucket who lives on the breadline with his downtrodden parents and two sets of bedridden grandparents. You’d need a heart of stone not to tingle with pleasure when Charlie realises he’s found the fifth, elusive Golden Ticket. He’s a good lad with a decent set of values, the only one of the five children who says please and thank you when being shown round Willy’s magic kingdom.
The show turns out to be a game of two halves. The first is firmly rooted in the rather depressing Bucket household, even allowing for Charlie’s natural joie de vivre. The second is something of a magic-carpet ride as Willy Wonka takes centre stage, beguiling all who cross his path.
In the 1971 film, the part was taken by Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp played Wonka in director Tim Burton’s 2005 version. Now it’s the turn of highly respected stage and screen actor Douglas Hodge who won a clutch of awards including an Olivier for his portrayal of a transvestite in La Cage Aux Folles. ‘I’ve long been a fan,’ says Sam Mendes, ‘and I was astonished by that performance, so touching, so funny, so human.’
Hodge didn’t approach this new challenge lightly. ‘In some ways,’ he says, ‘this role is very similar to doing Shakespeare and, like Hamlet or King Lear, there have been other people who’ve played the part before. It’s a bit like becoming the England manager.’ The trick, he thinks, is never to lose sight of the story and then try to make Wonka your own.
But for all the technological wizardry (particularly in the second half), it’s important not to lose sight of the human element at the heart of the story. ‘I don’t care how big or colourful the set is, if it doesn’t touch people then I don’t want to be in it. Right from the beginning, my thing has been, “Yeah, that looks great but what’s the story?” If we’re telling it properly, we’ll move audiences and that means you have to break people’s hearts a little bit.’
So, what’s the verdict? Hodge is peerless, the master of everything he touches, and he can sing, too. The night I saw it, Charlie was played by Jack Costello (one of four lads who alternate the role) and he hit exactly the right note. In the wrong hands, Charlie could be an insuff erable goody-goody, but here you were rooting for him right from the start.
The two sets of grandparents are clearly having a lot of fun, with Nigel Planer – best known as Neil in TV’s The Young Ones – getting the bulk of the action as Grandpa Joe. And there’s not a weak link among the repulsive children, their doting parents or any of the large ensemble cast.
In the end, though, this feels less like a musical than an event. Marc Shaiman has written some tuneful songs and his lyrics co-written with Scott Wittman are clever and witty. ‘It has to be believed to be seen,’ sings Wonka at one point, a clever reversal that has been used on the posters. And writer David Greig can’t be faulted for the way he’s stayed faithful to Dahl’s original story.
So, while it would be unfair to say that I came out humming the songs, some of the special effects are so dazzling that they stay with you as you think back to this hugely entertaining night out. At one point, for example, Wonka and Charlie step into a sort of illuminated telephone kiosk that then levitates, apparently at will, above the stage and with no visible means of support.
In the end, perhaps the real star of the show, the man with the sustained vision to serve up this dazzling box of tricks, is the one who brought us the latest version of 007.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is showing until 31 May at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London WC2: 0844-858 8877: www.charlieandthechocolatefactory.com
Welcome to the wonderful, wacky world of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Director Sam Mendes had nurtured the dream of staging Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, first published in 1964, for a quarter of a century, ever since he was assistant director of the Chichester Festival Theatre.
‘Willy Wonka was a mythic figure for me as a kid,’ says Mendes. ‘He’s one of the great characters in western literature. He’s from a tradition of great showmen: magicians, every circus Master of Ceremonies and every onstage conjuror all the way back to Prospero. He’s part mad genius, part Salvador Dalí, part everyman, part Charlie Chaplin.’
But it wasn’t until 2007, when Warner Bros bought the rights for £500,000, that Sam’s seemingly impossible dream slowly began to become a reality. And now it’s to be found at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where advance ticket sales have already brought in millions of pounds and where the auditorium of 2,000-plus seats look set to be full for the foreseeable future.
The story is familiar. Five golden tickets are hidden beneath the wrappers of Willy Wonka’s delicious chocolate bars, five tickets that will change the lives of those who find them. The prize for the winning children is an invitation to walk through the imposing gates of Mr Wonka’s chocolate factory to meet the great man himself and to sample some of the magic inside.
Fountains of chocolate flow from the ceiling. Creatures called Oompa- Loompas create chewing gum flavoured like three-course meals. Squirrels are in charge of quality control. And, at the centre of it all swirls the mesmerising, occasionally menacing, figure of Willy Wonka himself, a man with a very clear idea of right and wrong.
For this is a morality tale. One child is a glutton. Another is impossibly spoilt. A third can do little other than blow bubblegum bubbles at all and sundry. A fourth is a foulmouthed brat hooked on new technology. Each will meet a grisly end appropriate to their flaw.
From left to right: Veruca and Mr Salt with the Golden Ticket; Mrs Gloop and Augustus; Director Sam MendesThen there’s Charlie Bucket who lives on the breadline with his downtrodden parents and two sets of bedridden grandparents. You’d need a heart of stone not to tingle with pleasure when Charlie realises he’s found the fifth, elusive Golden Ticket. He’s a good lad with a decent set of values, the only one of the five children who says please and thank you when being shown round Willy’s magic kingdom.
The show turns out to be a game of two halves. The first is firmly rooted in the rather depressing Bucket household, even allowing for Charlie’s natural joie de vivre. The second is something of a magic-carpet ride as Willy Wonka takes centre stage, beguiling all who cross his path.
In the 1971 film, the part was taken by Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp played Wonka in director Tim Burton’s 2005 version. Now it’s the turn of highly respected stage and screen actor Douglas Hodge who won a clutch of awards including an Olivier for his portrayal of a transvestite in La Cage Aux Folles. ‘I’ve long been a fan,’ says Sam Mendes, ‘and I was astonished by that performance, so touching, so funny, so human.’
Hodge didn’t approach this new challenge lightly. ‘In some ways,’ he says, ‘this role is very similar to doing Shakespeare and, like Hamlet or King Lear, there have been other people who’ve played the part before. It’s a bit like becoming the England manager.’ The trick, he thinks, is never to lose sight of the story and then try to make Wonka your own.
But for all the technological wizardry (particularly in the second half), it’s important not to lose sight of the human element at the heart of the story. ‘I don’t care how big or colourful the set is, if it doesn’t touch people then I don’t want to be in it. Right from the beginning, my thing has been, “Yeah, that looks great but what’s the story?” If we’re telling it properly, we’ll move audiences and that means you have to break people’s hearts a little bit.’
So, what’s the verdict? Hodge is peerless, the master of everything he touches, and he can sing, too. The night I saw it, Charlie was played by Jack Costello (one of four lads who alternate the role) and he hit exactly the right note. In the wrong hands, Charlie could be an insuff erable goody-goody, but here you were rooting for him right from the start.
The two sets of grandparents are clearly having a lot of fun, with Nigel Planer – best known as Neil in TV’s The Young Ones – getting the bulk of the action as Grandpa Joe. And there’s not a weak link among the repulsive children, their doting parents or any of the large ensemble cast.
In the end, though, this feels less like a musical than an event. Marc Shaiman has written some tuneful songs and his lyrics co-written with Scott Wittman are clever and witty. ‘It has to be believed to be seen,’ sings Wonka at one point, a clever reversal that has been used on the posters. And writer David Greig can’t be faulted for the way he’s stayed faithful to Dahl’s original story.
So, while it would be unfair to say that I came out humming the songs, some of the special effects are so dazzling that they stay with you as you think back to this hugely entertaining night out. At one point, for example, Wonka and Charlie step into a sort of illuminated telephone kiosk that then levitates, apparently at will, above the stage and with no visible means of support.
In the end, perhaps the real star of the show, the man with the sustained vision to serve up this dazzling box of tricks, is the one who brought us the latest version of 007.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is showing until 31 May at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London WC2: 0844-858 8877: www.charlieandthechocolatefactory.com