Earlier this year, a botched “Willy Wonka” exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland, went viral – because what was promised as an immersive experience filled with fun and candy was far from it. Instead, it was a largely barren warehouse, with drab decorations and no chocolate. Now the experiment – which outraged some participants enough to call the cops – is being transformed into a musical.
“Willy’s Candy Spectacular,” a musical parody, will premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. Several songs from the musical were released on YouTube ahead of the premiere, including one featuring John Stamos, who sings a song “that traces the fall of civilization to the disastrous event in Glasgow.”
Billed as the “Fyre Fest of Fudge” – in reference to the botched 2017 music festival in the Bahamas – the musical will explore how the AI-influenced experiment turned out to be an outrageous failure.
Stuart Sinclair
According to the actor hired to play Willy Wonka in the failed Glasgow experiment, actors were given “AI-generated gibberish” scripts to learn just days before the experiment began.
“It was very disappointing how many people came to this event and found me dressed as Willy Wonka in a half-abandoned warehouse,” Paul Connell told BBC radio’s Good Morning Scotland.
He said the actors were furious and felt cheated. “(It) got pretty scary at one point because people were angry,” he said. “There was a lot of screaming and groups of people were very, very angry.”
Some visitors even called the police and Glasgow City Council’s trading standards department received at least one complaint about the event, according to BBC News,
One attendee told CBS News that his 4-year-old daughter, who dressed as Willy Wonka for the occasion, was really disappointed. “She was telling all her teachers in advance how she was going to meet Willy Wonka and it didn’t really happen that way,” Stuart Sinclair told CBS News’ Anne-Marie Green.
The father of three drove two hours and paid $44 a ticket for the event. “It was all described as a massive immersive experience, a great idea for the kids, chocolate fountains… It sounded really great, a great day out for the kids and the family,” Sinclair said. “And when we got there, as you can see in the pictures and stuff, it just wasn’t like that at all. There were four or five props, some candy for the kids. Half a cup of lemonade. It just wasn’t what it was promised.
Sinclair said the actors in the experiment were professional.
House of Illuminati, the company that organized the experiment, quickly canceled the experiment and initially said people would receive refunds – but deleted the social media post announcing it. CBS reached out to House of Illuminati for comment at the time and did not receive a response.
CBS News is awaiting response from House of Illuminati regarding the musical.
The new musical production comes from Tova Litvin and Doug Rockwell, a Los Angeles songwriting and production team behind projects like the Marvel Rising franchise, Netflix’s “Julie & the Phantoms” and the musical “Sneakerella ” on Disney+.
Kraft-Engel Productions, which produced a musical “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory” and several other productions, is also behind the show.
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