Waiting for Wonka
★★★☆☆ Sweetly sick satire
Gilded Balloon Patter House (Venue 24): Wed 5 Aug – Sun 16 Aug 2026
Review by Julia Amour
Waiting for Wonka at Gilded Balloon’s Patter House delivers deliciously on its billing as an unauthorised parody sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with slick performances and sly digs at the attention economy.
While filthy fan fiction gags are uppermost, the clever script by Half Trick’s Caden Scott and Courtney Bassett (who also directs) makes room for a sickly undertow of disgust at how online behaviour both sexualises and infantilises.
Chris Veteri ( Mike Teavee) and Caden Scott (Augustus Gloop) in Waiting for Wonka. Pic: Graeme Rennie
Years after their traumatic factory tour, four of the Golden Ticket winners are washed up in a Wonka company flat with Charlie Bucket (Rory Drinnan-Murray) calling the shots as their landlord.
Swirling browns and purples mirror the mood of meltdown, as the action opens onto a minimal but inventive set lit in garish tones (production design by James Jennifer Wright, Grant Duff and Indrid Heron, with technical design and operation by James Jennifer Wright).
niche fetish
These days, Augustus Gloop (Caden Scott) is addicted to food-adjacent protein hacks after his chocolate river nightmare; the grotesque transformation of Violet Beauregarde (Alex Medland) into a blueberry has become a niche fetish on the online bulletin boards; ruthless narcissist Veruca Salt (Airlie Duff) fancies herself as the next CEO of the factory despite lacking any obvious experience; and Mike Teavee (Chris Veteri) appears to be running an OnlyFans account from the shared bathroom webcam.
Airlie Duff. Pic: Graeme Rennie.
Told they have to vacate the flat to make way for new tenants, they decide their only option is capitalising on their sometime celebrity to expose Wonka’s corporate crimes online.The idea that their early Chocolate Factory ordeals led to trauma is hardly original. But the show manages to transcend this conceit by linking the casual cruelties of the 1960s source material with the equally baroque mental harms we routinely inflict on ourselves in the 21st century.
This makes for some tricky tonal shifts from pathos to farce and from loathing to lust, which are mostly well handled, with fight coordination from Luke Davison and intimacy direction from Coco Schogler. The movement could however benefit from some further thought given the restricted sight lines in this venue.
It helps that the show is fast and funny, with cuts to reduce it to a Fringe-friendly hour after its first 2025 outing seemingly producing a tighter piece that holds the attention. Screwball dialogue keeps up the momentum, with Veteri and Duff in particular bringing fantastic energy and precision to their performances, but a few other struggles to control the pace mean some rapid-fire laughs are lost.
surprisingly nuanced and noble
The performances are strong across the board. Scott stands out as a surprisingly nuanced and noble Augustus Gloop – who becomes the unlikely moral heart of the piece, trying to bring the flatmates together with kindness despite his own sense of inadequacy.
Alex Medland (Violet Beauregarde) and Airlie Duff (Veruca Salt) in Waiting for Wonka. Pic: Graeme Rennie.
The physicality of Medland’s Violet Beauregarde screams of shame at the commodification of her distress. And Drinnan-Murray as Charlie, now locked in as Wonka’s anointed right-hand man, reveals him as wilfully unreflective until a chink of doubt cracks through his bland optimism.
The plot builds to a point where the flatmates need to decide how to move on and whether there’s any room for reconciliation with Wonka. This is properly wrenching and leaves the audience longing for a more meaningful resolution that would integrate the play’s shallow surface with its sincere concerns.
For the moment, this is a smart, sleazy and funny ride – laced with a tantalising pinch of sadness at how capitalism continues to invent ways to carelessly exploit our human failings.
Running time: One hour (no interval).
Gilded Balloon Patter House (Dram), 3 Chambers St EH1 1HT (Venue 24).
Wed 5 Aug – Sun 16 August 2026.
Daily: 11.40am.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Half Trick website: halftrick.com/
Facebook: @HalfTrickTheatre
Instagram: @halftricktheatre
BlueSky: @halftrick
TikTok: @halftrick_theatre
Linktree: @halftrick.
Caden Scott (Augustus Gloop) and Rory Drinnan-Murray (Charlie Bucket) in Waiting for Wonka. Pic Graeme Rennie
ENDS
