It was almost a year ago to the day that the musical version of Willy Wonka’s fantabulous factory threw open its doors for business. Sam Mendes’s glossy, riotously colourful production has had its first major cast change and the good news is that it remains as sweet as ever now that Alex Jennings has taken over as the mysterious chocolate concocter whose “sugary Shangri-la… must be believed to be seen”.
It’s possibly even sweeter second time around, for Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s music and lyrics grow richer and deeper on a repeat hearing. I found myself humming happily along to songs such as Don’cha Pinch Me Charlie and If Your Mother were Here; these and other numbers are beginning to seem agreeably like old friends.
Jennings, that fine but frustratingly underrated actor, makes Wonka more genial than Douglas Hodge’s original rather otherworldly creation. Wonka now has an occasional appealing air of vulnerability, but he remains verbally delightful — “This factory won’t tour itself!” — and intermittently terrifying. No one wants to end up being categorised as a “bad nut” by his team of crack squirrel workers. Although we hardly see Wonka in the first hour, there’s a deliciously sneaky suggestion that he has indulged in a spot of social engineering to ensure that impoverished Charlie Bucket snags the fifth and final golden ticket for that coveted tour of the Wonka works.
To deploy some World Cup parlance, it’s a musical of two halves. The first is Dickens-lite, as Charlie (the splendid Jake Poolman at the performance I saw, but four boys alternate) rubs along with his poor-but-happy family. The second, in which Charlie tours the factory with his revolting, somewhat Americanised co-winners, is perforce episodic, but each scene reveals fresh invention, not least when it comes to the ingenious Oompa-Loompas. Horrid as Veruca Salt is, Amy Carter revels in the part. A richly satisfying evening.
Booking to May 30 2015 (0844 858 8877, charlieandthechocolatefactory.com)
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