‘Rip-off of a rip-off’: Wonka fiasco musical draws Fringe crowds

The Willy Wonka “fiasco in Glasgow” has begun to make Edinburgh smile. It is, as the real Veruca Salt put it on stage, a “slapped-together, ripped-off show in Edinburgh ripped off from somebody’s else slapped-together, ripped-off show in Glasgow”.
And yes, the copyright lawyers appear to have been busy.
Willy’s Candy Spectacular, a musical parody of the disastrous immersive experience in Glasgow which ended with four vans of police officers calming irate parents who had paid £35 a ticket, has begun drawing crowds at the start of its Fringe run.
The American production team have recruited two of the original child stars of the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Julie Dawn Cole, who played Veruca Salt, and Paris Themmen, who played Mike Teevee.
Prominent roles are also given to Kirsty Paterson, the original “Sad Oompa-Loompa” from the Glasgow show, and the Unknown, an AI-generated character who “terrified children” and did not appear in the original Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both went viral, drawing international attention to the immersive Willy’s Chocolate Experience, which had very little chocolate and was compared to a drug lab.
The American production team hope the show, with a big cast and big investment, will become a West End and Broadway hit.
After the early audiences in Edinburgh were given a “scratch ’n sniff” ticket the director, Andy Fickman, described the “fiasco in Glasgow” as a “Willy Wonka chocolate immersive experience that was none of that, created by a man who might or might not be a con artist”. It had “everything you would want in an immersive experience: crying, screaming children who were frightened to death, angry parents who had spent £35 on a ticket for nothing”.
The new show is littered with references to copyright law with a large disclaimer in the programme — itself an unusual feature at the Fringe — stating it is not endorsed by any of the studios who have adapted Dahl’s original story, the author’s estate nor Willy’s Chocolate Experience.
The producer Richard Kraft, who is known for staging Disney-branded musicals in the United States, has previously said he began recruiting financiers and songwriters within days of the Glasgow immersive experience going viral. He said: “The process of creating a brand-new musical, which usually spans years, is being condensed into just a couple of months.”
One of the songs describes the immersive experience as “based on Warner Brothers IP … what seemed legitimate was cheap and counterfeit and written by ChatGPT”.
Later in the show Willy the Impresario says: “You all say I should apologise for what I put you through, but what if it is that you all expected way too much … You will see magic everywhere if cement is magic to you.”
After the February opening Billy Coull, the director of the House of Illuminati which was behind the Glasgow experience, did apologise and said: “Unfortunately at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through.” His statement added that they “probably should have cancelled first thing instead”.
But where would the fun in that be for the Fringe?