Police Call Bitter Willy Wonka ‘An Immersive Experience’ That Goes Horribly Wrong, and an Actor Talks About It

We live in an age where digital fantasies can be conjured with a few clicks and artificial intelligence promises more than reality can deliver. The House of Illuminati in Glasgow, Scotland, recently organized a “Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” which went from a sweet promise thanks to the art of artificial intelligence to a bitter disappointment, leaving children in tears and families pissed off, and led to the police being called.

The event was advertised with the allure of the fantastical, a wonderland inspired by Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka reboot. The AI-powered ads showed a world of lollipop forests, gummy candy waterfalls, flying horses and giant mushrooms. For $45, families were promised “a place where chocolate dreams come true.”

Upon arrival, attendees encountered not a confectionery paradise but a sparsely and terribly decorated warehouse. The “immersive experience” was nothing more than a gutted factory that featured a few plastic candy canes and rented props strewn across bare concrete floors. The windows were dirty and the air conditioning system was exposed. It was very different from the advertised magical kingdom.

The disillusionment was evident when parents and children discovered that the bizarre Oompa Loompas were, in fact, struggling actors reciting lines they had learned just the night before. Reports also emerged that actors were being asked to improvise with non-existent props!

Stuart Sinclair was a parent who drove two hours for what he believed would be “the full Willy Wonka experience with chocolate fountains and a great day out for the kids.” His experience, shared on Facebook, describes an event that lasted just two minutes of what was supposed to be an hour of entertainment. The main attraction, it seems, was the queue of disgruntled attendees waiting to air their grievances to the organisers, who were obviously looking for a quick buck.

A cast member from the show took to social media to talk about his role in all of this and apologized for his part. Paul Connell admitted that the participants wanted Timothée Chalamet and instead got Timothée Charlatan. Connell said that he had been assigned the role of Wonka a few days earlier and that he had handed him an “incomprehensible” script and was told to “do whatever you want”.

Connell told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland: “It was very disappointing to see how many people turned up to this event and found me dressed as Willy Wonka in a semi-derelict warehouse. I feel sorry for anyone who bought tickets to this event, people who were expecting a magical chocolate experience and found me in a top hat in a dirty warehouse in Glasgow.

Connell said he and the other actors “were furious. We had been scammed too, and at some point it got pretty scary, because people were angry. There was a lot of yelling and groups of people getting very, very angry.”

The House of Illuminati reportedly offered 850 customers full refunds and canceled the event.

Via: Gizmodo