“Many people have come here to sell chocolate, they’ve all been crushed by the Chocolate Cartel. You can’t get a shop without selling chocolate, and you can’t sell chocolate without a shop.”

Abacus Crunch

If Tim Burton’s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory taught us anything, it was that people did not need to know about Willy Wonka’s origins. Wonka has taken the opposite lesson, devoting an entire film to the eccentric chocolatier’s youth. As one might expect from the director of the Paddington films, there is considerable charm in the story of Wonka befriending an orphan and struggling to sell his confections despite the control of the “Chocolate Cartel” (seemingly a riff on Dahl’s villainous triumvirate from Fantastic Mr Fox). The unnamed European mish-mash of a city never comes alive in the same way as Paddington’s whimsical London, but Wonka conjures some visual delight if only hinting at the more impressive factory we have seen elsewhere. Chalomet’s Wonka is kinder, with a more approachable eccentricity than previous big screen incarnations, and he is surrounded by a stellar cast with cameos from a swathe of British comedians. As a musical, however, Wonka falls down — singing is not Chalomet’s forte and most of the songs feel like offcuts from Sweeney Todd. It is a disappointing indictment for a musical that the only memorable parts of the soundtrack are the few nods to the 50-year-old Mel Stuart film. Overall, then, Wonka is an unnecessary extension to the man’s mythos but not without its charm.

6/10