| Dahl-icious Summer Production |
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory |
| Aberystwyth Arts Centre , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , August 15, 2024 |
The phenomenon that is Roald Dahl ever grows. The popularity of his writing is as great, if not greater, now thirty-four years after the life. Three years ago Netflix swooped on the entire copyright of 49 books for an eye-watering sum. The author has been well served by the adaptors of his work to stage. The dramatist behind “Matilda” is surprisingly Dennis Kelly, normally a firebrand playwright. (When he visited the Royal College in Cardiff he reminded the students of a fact of fiction. A script may mow down any number of humans but kill a cat and there will be outrage.) “The Witches”, a huge success at the turn of the year, had the sure authorial hand of Lucy Kirkwood behind it. The book for the ten-year old adaptation of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” for musical theatre has a name to surprise. David Greig is the most prolific and eminent playwright of Scotland of his generation. Greig stretches the tale with some skill from its origins in 1966. There is a linguistic flourish that is pure Dahl. A word that sounds like “schnoztastic” appears. He conjures up a tale of the Pope and Dalai Lama fighting for a Golden Ticket. The stringent conditions of the Bucket family has a historical cadence to it. Sweets were one of the last items to come off rationing from the wartime era. The date, 1st February 1953, was not so far behind when Dahl first wrote his tale. The government decision had a Welsh dimension to it. Gwilym Lloyd-George was Minister of Food. So too was the pent-up indulgence of the five Golden Ticket winners, who tour the baroque fantasia of the Wonka chocolate works, once a fact of history. In Clapham a sweet company gave 800 children 150lbs of lollipops during their midday lunch break. Another London factory handed out free sweets to all who asked. Llinos Griffith Gough's inventive costume design plays on the chunky clothing that was of the 1950s. The childhood life of Charlie is one of restriction. A chocolate bar is to be had as a birthday gift. Its eating is stretched out halfway to the next birthday. The faltering income of her mother, Elian Mai West's Mrs Bucket, is threatened by automation. A washing machine is to reduce the washing load to be done by hand. There is a relish to be had by Dahl and Greig in the diet for the household of six. The hard-pressed single mother has four bed-bound grandparents to provide for. Leanne Pinder's Mrs Green calls out her wares of second-hand vegetables. The sprouts are rotten. Mould on tomatoes is treated with a dab of spit and a bit of polish. Other produce is decayed to the extent that “eat it through a straw and call it a smoothie.” Two juniors in Row J chortle at every impolite touch of the Dahl kind. Grandpa Joe produces a lifetime's saving in the form of a small bag of coins. “That is your funeral money” protests mother. “You can put me in a bin bag” says Phylip Harries in riposte. Phylip Harries is back on the stage of Aberystwyth just months after the floppy wigs and cheesecloth shirts of “Operation Julie.” So too is Caitlin Lavagna. As a Bavarian Mrs Gloop she gets to yodel in a show-stopper number. A yodel is all in a day's work for a singer of talent. Daniel Carter-Hope this time is in the orchestra pit. He is on guitar and bass. Musical director David Haller is on keyboards. Along with Colin King, Gwion Phillips and Paul Raybould five musicians can make a mighty sound for Marc Shaiman's score. The last Roald Dahl story to be staged in Aberystwyth was “Fantastic Mister Fox” by the Youth Company. The review then included “The villains always get to steal it in any decent story.” So here too. Heledd Davies' Veruca is a pirouetting ballet dancer from Novosibirsk. Her oligarch father is Geraint Rhys Edwards, a fine voice remembered from 2023's “Brassed Off.” There are concessions to the world of 2024. Miriam Llwyd's Violet Beauregarde is a posturing gum-chewing West Coast influencer. Duane Gooden's father is a glitzily dressed, pushy parent for whom every setting is little more than a potential backdrop for cyber-show-off. Mike Teavee, a dynamic Owen Jac Roberts, is a game and phone-addicted millennial of a deliciously dismissive rudeness. All stories are variations on a small handful of archetypes. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” merges two. “Cinderella” is the tale of virtue that finds its end reward. The Odyssey is the journey in hazard. The trip through the depths and inner places of the Wonka works is a trial of hazard and temptations. Sam Jones' Willy Wonka is a deeply ambiguous figure, part-showman, part-Svengali when it is revealed that all had been pre-planned. The role of Charlie is large. Evie Hughes, rarely off stage, is possessed of a huge confidence. She shares the role with Gruffydd Rhys Davies of whom equally good words are spoken. Director Richard Cheshire picks them out in his programme note “our two Charlies, for their commitment, dedication and sheer hard work...these two have been simply amazing!” If there is a moral to this tale it is a paean to the power of imagination. Wonka recognises in humble Charlie the instinct to invent. One of the bizarre ideas is for a sweet that contains uranium. Chewing and phone-charging become one. As for the screen-obsessed execrable Mike he says it all “Imagination? Wozzat?” This is very much a production of the unique Aberystwyth style. Venues do productions and they do youth work and outreach. The Aberystwyth tradition is that the whole lot be bundled together. The preeningly confident Violet is revealed in the programme to have started at age four, won a singing award at the Urdd Eisteddfod at eleven and is not even out of school yet. Heledd Davies was first reviewed on this site in 2015. With the Oompa Loompas and other children the stage floods with a company of thirty. It is good to see a space so a-brim with colour, voice and presence. Credits are given in many quarters for the mounting of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Ceredigion Council, the Arts Council of Wales, Aberystwyth University, Castell Howell, Cynnal y Cardi, Backstage Trust, Vale of Rheidol Railway, Mollie's Sweet Shop, My Dentist and Theatr na Nog all feature. So too is an unusual name. “Wedi ei ariannu gan Llywodraeth y DU.” That is a tale that deserves its fuller telling at another time. Postscript A second visit to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” , two weeks on, confirmed the word-of-mouth view on the other Charlie Bucket. The character is barely off-stage in the first act and has solo songs to sing. Llinos Griffith Gough's costume design has him in a chunky home-knitted pullover and stripey woolly bobble-hat. Gruffydd Rhys Davies plays him with the same charm, perkiness and stage presence. A second visit emphasises other aspects; the variety and flair of the costume design throughout that includes Mrs Teavee in 1950's bright red and white dots ; the quality of the full singing, twenty-seven voices, that closes act one; the nimble-limbed charisma of Sam Jones' Willy Wonka; Heledd Davies' command of a complex voice, movement and dance mix, the startling sudden splits executed by Miriam Llwyd. As for the wordplay “the ideas I haven't yet had are kept in the blank pages at the back” is a nice one. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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