Review: EDINBURGH 2024: WILLY'S CANDY SPECTACULAR, Pleasance Dome

“It was the start of the end of the world”

Willy’s Candy Spectacular, written by Richard Kraft and Andy Fickman is a musical parody of the infamous Willy Wonka immersive experience in Glasgow back in February, in which families paid £35 for tickets and were greeted with an empty warehouse, two jellybeans for each child and a bizarre character known as The Unknown. The event went viral on social media and hundreds (if not thousands) of memes were created, including jokes about the “Sad Oompa Loompa” working at the “meth lab” and the iconisation of The Unknown.

We begin with a speech by the director (writer Andy Fickman), a strange choice that only adds to the already long runtime of seventy minutes. There is also an appearance by child actor Miles Petersen, who explains how our “scratch and sniff golden tickets” work. The show is apparently still in its development stages, as there are microphones with music stands at the front of the stage and barely any set to speak of. After an introductory song by David Hasselhoff (Wilkie Ferguson), we learn more about the experience and how each of the people involved dreams of the impact it will have on the lives of the visiting children.

The songs were written by a range of songwriters including Riki Lindhome, Alan Zachary, Michael Weiner, Tova Litvin, Doug Rockwell and Daniel Mertzlufft. Even with six different songwriters, the songs sound the same and are pretty forgettable, even with talented performers giving their all. The songs are prerecorded, and it appeared that most of the background vocals were seemingly prerecorded as well, with the ensemble simply lip-syncing to the loud music. 

Kirsty Paterson, one of the original performers in the experience in Glasgow, is one of the narrators of the story, and there are some bits that involve her questioning why other actresses are playing the role of her when she is already a part of the show. It is a reasonable question and there are a few bits that go into more detail on it, but Paterson is massively underused, only commenting on her disappointment as the other actresses tell her story. There are actually three “Kirsty Patersons” credited in the show’s Playbill - Cassandra Parker, Nicole Greenwood and Shelley Regner. 

Paterson is joined as a narrator by Paris Themmen, the actor who played Mike Teevee in the 1971 version of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. It would have been interesting to hear about what it was like to be a part of the original movie, but, unfortunately, all Themmen does is brag about being Mike Teevee and make jokes belittling Paterson and the other people involved in the immersive experience.

But, even though they already have a solid plot by focusing on Paterson, the writers choose to delve into another story, creating the original character of Charlize (Monica Evans) who actually enjoys the experience, giving one of her two jellybeans to “Willy the Impresario” (Eric Petersen). She’s so optimistic that she even has a positive view of AI, which appears as an anthropromised woman (Nicole Greenwod) who is seen as a friendly person, not a piece of technology that is controversially stealing the work of artists for the profit of others. 

One of the most confusing aspects of Willy’s Candy Spectacular is that the actual event only appears for a brief song. Why make a parody of an event if you aren’t going to actually satirise the event itself? And, during this song, there is a sexual bit about the actress playing The Unknown, a sixteen-year-old girl - truly horrible stuff. It is also heavily implied that those who purchased tickets were the ones at fault, not the creator of the show who tricked everyone and took advantage of not only visitors but his employees. 

Ultimately, Willy’s Candy Spectacular is an incredibly disappointing musical that might be as unfortunate as the experience it was inspired by. The show does have some decent songs, but they are lost in the chaos of bickering narrators, bizarre plot choices and a strange decision to humanise Artificial Intelligence. If this is what the future of musicals is, then it truly may be the start of the end of the world that the show claims the time to be.

Willy’s Candy Spectacular ran until 26 August at Pleasance Dome - King Dome.

Photo Credit: David Monteith-Hodge

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