You don’t know heartbreak until you see a little girl, dressed as an Oompa Loompa, crying and holding one jelly bean. While playing Willy Wonka at Glasgow’s disastrous event over the weekend, I saw that heartbreaking sight.
I was one of eight actors cast for the now notorious, TikTok-viral event called Willy’s Chocolate Experience. The “immersive experience” inspired by Roald Dahl's novel was to take place over Feb. 24 and 25, but only lasted about four hours before it descended into chaos and police were called to deal with angry mobs.
Looking back, the first red flag was that the event was organized by a group called “The House of Illuminati.” The second was that they spelled the word “contract” wrong.
TODAY.com has reached out to House of Illuminati for comment and has not heard back by the time of publication.
Billy Coull, House of Illuminati director, told STV News he was “so so sorry to everybody” for the event. “We tried to continue the event in the best manner in which we could, however, I am deeply disappointed,” he said.
There was a dress rehearsal on Friday, the night before the event started. What I saw when I arrived didn’t match the colorful advertising. The website promised “surprises at every turn," like “giant mushrooms filled with sweets, colossal lollipops, and candy canes that seem to touch the sky," and other “immersive delights designed to transport you into the heart of a whimsical chocolate wonderland.”
The website clarifies, in small print, that “this experience is in no way related to the Wonka franchise, which is owned by the Warner Bros. company.”
Instead of a psychedelic world of wonder, I entered an old, dirty warehouse with a few plastic mushrooms and a couple of props strewn about. The organizers gave me a top hat, a waistcoat, and that’s it.
I was also given a 15-page script to memorize. I soon realized it seemed to be AI-generated gibberish. My favorite line was, “There is a man. We don’t know his name. We know him as the Unknown. He is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.”
But I kept my cool. I’ve done events like this before, and sometimes they have a crew come in overnight. When I asked the people running the event about how it would look the next day, they said it would be improved. “Come tomorrow and it will be fine,” they said.
I kept asking the organizers what they wanted from me, acting-wise. They said, “Do what you want. We’re not bothered.” I've thought a lot about their intentions with this event. In in my opinion, they thought, “We nailed this. This is going to be a real good event.” I don’t know why they'd go through with the event if they didn't think it would be worth the effort.
Despite their reassurances, I couldn’t sleep. I knew families were paying £35 a ticket for the event, which is roughly $45. With its seemingly AI-generated script and seemingly AI-generated false advertising, the whole event seemed dystopian.
The next day, I showed up and realized the set wasn’t better than the night before. Still, the actors and I decided to stay. By then, we figured we weren’t going to get paid, so we did it for the kids. Before I did stand-up comedy, I was a teacher and so the idea of kids being disappointed just was heartbreaking. My attitude was, let’s try and make this fun. When kids started to arrive, I made jokes with them and their parents. The vibe was like, we all know this is bad. But I’m going to try and make it funny, at least.
Then, I was told I was spending too much time with the kids and to try and get them through the experience as quickly as possible.
To sketch it out the “experience” for you, the event had four rooms.
- The first room had a small bridge with mushrooms.
- The second one, I think is the funniest. The script described something called “The Twilight Tunnel,” completely dark with twinkling stars on the ceiling. What we got instead was a corridor of checkered flags tied to poles, and mirrors.
- The third room was the "Imagination Lab.” Technically, you did have to use your imagination to imagine there was a lab there. There, we were allowed to give the kids one jellybean.
- The final room was called the Lemonade Room. Kids got a quarter of a glass of lemonade.
I missed the start of the riots because my colleagues forced me to take a break. I’d been playing Willy Wonka for three and a half hours solid, which is a real test on your sanity. I went out to my car and sat for about 45 minutes. I got out and walked back to find angry mobs shouting at the organizers, who were crying.
I joked to the other actors, “I left you guys on your own for one hour and look what happened.” Then I realized this was actually dangerous. The set got completely trashed. Two police vans and two police squad cars eventually turned up.
I felt unsafe. As Wonka, I was the face of it. It was like everyone wanted Wonka’s head on a stick! But I felt like I'd been scammed as much as anyone. I was told I’d be Willy Wonka at an amazing, wonderful experience for children, and here I am in a top hat bought off Amazon, in a warehouse with mobs.
We actors decided to take shelter in a pub nearby. It was very unlikely we were going to get paid, so we decided not to get killed in our chocolate factory.
The other stand-up comedians in Glasgow's comedy scene are jealous and keep telling me, “You’re so lucky. Now you’ve got a funny story.” They’re right: I already did a stand-up gig about it.
And I’ve become a bit famous. People actually shout “Wonka” at me when I walk down the street (at least I think it’s Wonka they’re shouting). Everyone from Glasgow has been nice about it, saying they appreciated the actors made an effort and were nice to the kids.
But I’m still sad the kids were let down. A few parents and I have gotten together and we’re going to put on an event for the kids — for free — and actually make it nice. We already have sponsors. Maybe I’ll have take on my role as Wonka again. But hopefully not.