The double Olivier winner takes on the eccentric chocolatier in a brand-new production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, arriving next summer.

Michael Ball is heading into the chocolate factory. The double Olivier Award-winning star has been confirmed as Willy Wonka in a brand-new production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, opening at the London Coliseum for a strictly limited run from 4 June to 18 September 2027.

Directed by Curve Artistic Director Nikolai Foster, this reimagined staging of Roald Dahl’s beloved story mixes the musical’s original Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman score with three songs plucked straight from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Pure Imagination, The Candy Man and I’ve Got a Golden Ticket, written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. It’s a genuinely mouth-watering combination, folding the film’s most iconic numbers into David Greig’s stage book for the first time in the West End.

Ball follows Charlie Bucket, Grandpa Joe, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teavee through the factory gates and into a world of chocolate rivers, singing Oompa-Loompas and inventions that defy imagination, where nothing is ever quite what it seems. It’s the latest chapter in an extraordinary 40-year career for Ball, who has previously won the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical twice, first for Sweeney Todd and then for his celebrated performance as Edna Turnblad in the original West End production of Hairspray.

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