Charlie is booted out of chocolate factory: Outrage after Roald Dahl's hero gets gender-switched
CARDIFF, WALES: A theater company has sparked an uproar after casting women to play the lead character in Roald Dahl's 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory'. The classic story of a boy who stumbles upon a golden ticket in a chocolate bar has been retold and referenced in movies and on stage several times, but the latest move by Playful Productions has left some shocked.
Producers reportedly hired two young actresses to play Charlie Bucket, who will alternate with two boys in the role as the production tours the UK. Audiences have complained of how they were baffled by the swap and wondered why it was necessary. This comes after backlash earlier this year to the prospect of editing Dahl's classic children's books in a bid to make them more palatable to modern sensibilities.
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Actresses Amelia Minto and Jessie-Lou Harvie were reportedly cast as Charlie Bucket for the latest production. They are sharing the titular role with male actors Isaac Sudgen and Noah Walton. “I was stunned to see Charlie is now a girl?" one theatergoer at Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff -- where it is now playing -- told The Sun. "Why change something that was not broken?”
'Viewers don't want them altered'
It's worth noting that the debate about rewriting classics has been a hot topic in recent months and has been met with criticism that such edits would curb the authors' "freedom of expression." In February, the publisher Puffin announced that offensive terms such as "fat" should be removed from works like 'Charlie and The Chocolate Factory'. Meanwhile, characters such as Augustus Gloop were expected to be referred to only as "enormous," and the Oompa Loompas were made gender-neutral. In 'The Twits', Mrs Twit was referred to as "beastly" and not "ugly and beastly," albeit original versions are still available in the market. “As if re-writing Dahl wasn’t bad enough, theatre producers now want to re-gender his characters," another source told The Sun. “It just confuses the audience. The story is a classic and has nothing to do with gender so it just seems like change for the sake of being woke. Dahl’s stories and characters were genius. Viewers don’t want or need them to be altered.”
Woke wave in publishing
Charlie is referred to as "he" by the Wales Millennium Centre. On the show's website, at least 15 of the 28-strong cast reportedly have a preferred pronoun beside their name. The publisher Puffin, however, was forced to make a U-turn after a wave of criticism, including from the late Queen who demanded they should not curb the "freedom of expression." The publisher claimed it had "listened to the debate" and reverted its decision. Several publishing houses have, in recent months, edited out words deemed offensive in books by late authors Dahl, Christie, Wodehouse, and Fleming.
In March, it was revealed that the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's classic book 'Great Expectations' had been given a "woke" twist by 'Peaky Blinders' creator Steven Knight. The main character of the show, the criminal Magwitch, declared in one scene that the British Empire was "built on the lies of privileged white men," per the Telegraph, thereby demonstrating the show's strong anti-colonial stance.