The birth of this show was in Glasgow where a family attraction called Willy’s Chocolate Experience was awful, with parents having to pay £35 to visit an uninspiring warehouse. Kids were given small handfuls of jellybeans and the actors were reading an AI-generated script.
Such was the outrage that the police were called to placate the visitors and shut the place down. The whole venture became viral on social media, leaving many children bitterly disappointed.
Producer Richard Kraft in the USA heard of the fiasco in Glasgow and felt it had the makings of a musical parody, and so it arrives in Edinburgh for a world première with the added gimmick of Smell.O.Rama, where everyone in the audience is given a numbered scratch-card that reveals a smell associated with the action.
Director Andy Fickman introduces the show and explains its journey to the audience before the performance starts.
It’s very much a concert-style version with flashes of Broadway glamour, sparkling green dresses and lots of large candy sweet lollipops as they create “a picture perfect day.”
The large cast certainly know how to put across a big production number and sing with pizzazz the fifteen songs to a full, rich, pulsating backing score.
Two narrators, Julie Dawn-Cole, who played Veruca Salt in the 1971 film, and Kirsty Patterson, fill in the storyline between the songs. Eric Petersen is Willy, the evil impresario, who wants to be the ”best worst guy in history.”
All the cast perform with enthusiasm that sparkles, and it's great fun.