Furious families storm out halfway through show dubbed ‘Willy Wonka Experience 2.0’

A Facebook group with more than 1,200 members has been filled with angry posts about The Wicked Wizard of Oz: Cirque Spectacular, with some comparing it to the notorious Willy Wonka Experience

A pantomime has been branded the “Willy Wonka Experience 2.0” after irate families stormed out halfway through. Disgruntled punters are now demanding their money back, with many saying they’ve seen “better school shows”.

The World’s Biggest Productions, the company behind The Wicked Wizard of Oz: Cirque Spectacular, had promised a “brand-new, breath-taking, Cirque staging” of Frank L. Baum’s classic tale.

The show at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro was billed as “Panto meets Cirque”, but parents have said the production was “inappropriate, overpriced and falsely advertised”. Some even went as far as to call it “Willy Wonka Experience 2.0” – a reference to the infamous Willy Wonka Experience that became a viral sensation when Oompa Loompas doled out just one jelly bean and a quarter cup of lemonade per child at the £35-per-ticket bash.

Following the performance of The Wicked Wizard of Oz: Cirque Spectacular on December 27, a wave of complaints flooded in, according to GlasgowLive. This led to the creation of a Facebook group called ‘The Woeful Wicked Wizard of Oz – A Not-So Cirque Spectacular’, which now boasts more than 1,200 members.

Glasgow Live has since spoken to several people who attended Saturday’s show. Mum-of-two Carol-Ann Henderson described it as a “shambles”, adding “it has been completely mis-sold and advertised as a cirque spectacular. If I said it was an amateur production that would be a lie – I’ve seen better school shows”.

One dad revealed he forked out £297 for his family-of-five to attend, stating, “This blows the Willy Wonka Experience right out of the water. Embarrassing performance from a high-profile production company.”

A third attendee, who preferred to stay anonymous, claimed she had “never seen the Hydro empty so fast”. She criticised the sound quality as “awful”, and was unimpressed with the props and production, which included a witch on a bike attached to a golf cart, and munchkins on stilts, and blasted the lack of a coherent storyline.

The Facebook page – set up by an audience member who attended the Brighton Centre show on December 16 – was filled with angry posts from hundreds of spectators across the UK, all expressing similar dissatisfaction.

Fiona Hanton posted: “Left after the first half, absolutely disgusting”, while Dawn Page wrote: “Just walked out of the terrible performance in Glasgow. The show is currently still on but absolutely shocking.”

World’s Biggest Productions has been approached for further comment. In response to a similar report from the Manchester Evening News, a spokesperson for World’s Biggest Productions defended the show, stating: “Wicked Wizard Of Oz opened in Blackpool to a fantastic response in October.

“The promotional videos advertising the show featured the acts that appeared in the performance in Manchester, either taken during our workshop rehearsals or at live performances in Blackpool.

“The show title ‘Wicked Wizard of Oz’ has a smaller typeface descriptor “cirque spectacular” and ‘panto meets cirque’ which reasonably identified that circus elements would be included in a panto style show. Six of our talented circus cast won silver medals at this year’s European circus festivals.”

The statement added: “It was never suggested this was a Cirque de Soleil production and their forthcoming UK tour has tickets from £66 – £372 and when compared to our prices of £29 – £70 it would be unrealistic to expect similar production values as Soleil.”

In response to criticism of the show’s humour, they added: “Our show, like all pantomimes, contains some jokes in the pantomime tradition of being silly. Over 150,000 people attend our shows annually and if maybe 0.1% do not appreciate one joke in the show, it feels rather unbalanced reporting against the mass who enjoy a form of humour that has survived two hundred years.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Event Campus (SEC), where the OVO Hydro is located, said: “We welcome a wide range of productions and performers to the SEC during the year. We take all feedback seriously, and all comments have been shared directly with the promoter who is responsible for the show and its content. Our priority is always to ensure visitors to the SEC have a positive experience.”

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