Waiting for Wonka
★★★☆☆ Overstretched
Augustine United Church: Wed 2 – Sat 5 Jul 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Half Trick’s Waiting for Wonka at Augustine Church has plenty of ideas, excellent staging and some genuinely terrific performances, but never quite convinces in the way it threatens to.
Caden Scott and Courtney Bassett’s play features the five Golden Ticket winners from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 15 years on. Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teavee are living in the Wonka factory, understandably traumatised by what happened to them, while even golden boy Charlie Bucket hasn’t had things his own way.
Chris Veteri, Airlie Duff, Alex Medland and Caden Scott in Waiting for Wonka. Pic: Half Trick
It’s a clever enough conceit (even if the idea that Willy Wonka didn’t pay enough attention to health and safety isn’t exactly a new one). There is a good deal of sparky dialogue and a great deal of time has clearly been spent carving out the piece’s structure.
The problem is that it doesn’t really go anywhere. Having first seemingly relied upon the fact that the audience already know these characters, far too long is then spent on their backstories.
Any such piece is going to have to try very hard to establish itself as a sequel to the original rather than a throwaway commentary on it. After all, Dahl himself struggled to come up with a follow-up – how many people really remember Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator?
Interesting possible storylines are suggested here, then not pursued. It is all far too like so many of those ‘here are a group of people trapped in a room’ plays that are ten a penny at Fringe time. It also (possibly too aware that it is based on characters from a children’s book) is far too keen to throw in ‘adult’ material every so often, which usually turns out to be of the distinctly ‘fnar fnar’ type. If you’re really going to go down the ‘Waiting for …’ route as a title, you have to be sharper, more absurd and funnier than this.
commitment
At over 90 minutes, it is fully twice as long as it needs to be, even with more comfortable chairs than those in the Augustine Studio. There is an inescapable feeling that the whole concept might be better as a revue sketch. This is only reinforced by a closing sequence that is decidedly unsatisfactory.
The set for Waiting for Wonka. Pic Claire Hutchins.
However, there is no doubt that the cast approach it all with the maximum of commitment. Scott invests Augustus Gloop with a wounded dignity that approaches the heroic at times, as well as excellent comic timing. Airlie Duff’s Veruca Salt is exceptionally believable as a real-life, complex human being.
Alex Medland similarly gives Violet Beauregarde real depth, while Chris Veteri’s Mike Teavee has a frantic energy that is very well sustained.
The character of Charlie suffers most from the piece’s structure – Charlie comes in and is annoying, Charlie goes away, repeat several times – but Rory Drinnan-Murray gives the character a definite battered charm. While there is probably too much information thrown in about the characters (and certainly too many lengthy monologues) the cast do their utmost to flesh them out.
Bassett’s direction injects enough pace to keep it all going, and the acting space is notably well used. The design of James Jennifer Wright, Grant Duff and Indrid Heron is inventive and striking; Wright is also responsible for the piece’s fine technical design and operation.
obvious question
All of the many good things about the performances and the staging, however, fail to answer the obvious question about such a production, which is – why do it in the first place? It doesn’t add much to our understanding of the original book/film/ musical; we already know that Dahl was a terrible person in so many ways, and that his books are full of casual racism, sadism and goodness knows what else.
Waiting for Wonka doesn’t really establish its own identity as a piece of theatre, however good its presentation may be.
Running time: One hour and 35 minutes (no interval)
Augustine United Church, Studio, 41 George IV Bridge, EH1 1EL
Wednesday 2 – Saturday 5 July 2025
Daily at 7.00 pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Website: https://halftrick.com
Instagram: @halftricktheatre
Facebook: @HalfTrickTheatre
BlueSky: @halftrick.
ENDS
