Rating: ★★
Venue: Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh
A satire inspired by Glasgow's Wonka rip-off sensation aka the Fyre Fest of Fudge. From the wreckage, a team of top Broadway and Emmy Award-winning songwriters declare: 'It's a MUSICAL!!' If Ed Wood and PT Barnum got into "environmental experiences" fuelled by a million dreams and zero dollars, this would be this.
Earlier this year the memes of a sad Oompa Loompa standing by what looked like a meth lab took over the internet. The origin of this unlikely image was a show sold as a magical immersive experience inspired by the world of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the whimsy of Wonka and the colour and glitz from the beloved children’s tale (all achieved thanks to a generous serving of AI generated art). Instead, what hundreds of ticket holders found was a semi-empty warehouse where a team of performers with no experience or time for rehearsal tried to offer the children a semi-decent experience.
What should have been a wonderful day out turned into a nightmare when the faults of the planning and execution of Willy’s Candy Spectacular became apparent to the families in attendance. Such was the chaos that the police was called to the warehouse in the outskirts of Glasgow, and so, an internet legend was born.
In the days following the event, you’d be hard pressed not to see the details of the #EpicFail event that was plastered all over your timeline, which is why it is not surprising that it would have captured the attention of theatre producers, who, fascinated by the disaster, decided to turn it into the show that premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The show, directed by Andy Fickman (Heathers on the West End), stars the real Oompa Loompa, Kirsty Paterson, and Julie Dawn Cole, the actress that brought Veruca Salt to life in the Gene Wilder movie, as herself. The duo retell the story much as we all heard it before, from the AI posters that started circulating, to the disastrous shutdown of the event by the Glasgow police.
If that had been the end of it, and the show had focused on the absolute insanity of Willy’s Candy Spectacular (of which there was more than enough), it would have been much more enjoyable. Unfortunately, not content with the show itself as inspiration, the story of this parody slides into an insane plot to end the world, cooked up by the organiser of the Willy Wonka experience.
Not only was this diversion from the story disconcerting, but it also unfortunately wasn’t very entertaining. The cast were insanely talented, but given so little to work with, it seemed like a waste to have them all on the stage. Most of the characters had little to do, and the fantastic ideas showed at the beginning of the show, like the implementation of puppets, soon fell flat.
One touch I found very endearing was the scratch and sniff card: each audience member received a card (pictured above) and cues were showed throughout the show to scratch a specific field that would be relevant to the moment of the show.
If the thought put into it had also been given to the story as a whole, this show would have been a great success, but as it stands, it didn’t fulfil the promise of parodying one of the most insane stories to hit the internet in recent times.
You can find out more about Willy's Candy Spectacular, here.
Review by Luma
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