I feel like this post is opening a whole can of controversial worms, and that makes me uncomfortable. I know it shouldn’t though, in a land of free speech and open minds. I even know that I myself am often pushing and advocating for people’s dreams to not be limited by the societal boundaries of gender.

Let me not fall into a rabbit hole of awkward shuffling and excuse mumbling. Earlier this year I went to His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen to watch a performance of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory The Musical, a show which I had been excited to see ever since it was first announced. I had long had the soundtrack on my iPod. I am, and always have been, a huge fan of Roald Dahl’s work. So I bought my Thursday matinee ticket, at great cost (by far the most expensive theatre ticket I’ve bought this year), and rolled up ready for an afternoon of sweet magic.

As the show started I keenly kept my eye out for that key character Charlie Bucket…and waited…and waited…

When the scene moved to what was clearly meant to depict the Bucket household, the whispers of confusion rippled through the audience as a girl trudged onto stage. The characters greeted her as Charlie, more whispers. I assumed that this was one of these theatric instances of women playing men characters, and was back on board. Then Mrs Bucket and the grandparents were talking about “her” and it became clear that Charlie Bucket was, in fact, a much loved daughter.

Now my heart didn’t sink because I don’t think the character could be a girl, I’m totally on board for little Charlotte Bucket albeit that’s not what Roald wrote. It’s because I immediately started wondering how they would fit in one of my favourite songs from the soundtrack- That’s My Son. See it’s probably easy enough to change “him” to “her” or “he” to “she” in a script…but it’s another project altogether to rewrite a song from “son” to “daughter”. It’s more syllables for a start.

Another creative liberty which this production took was to make Mr Bucket deceased. In the original story Mr Bucket works while Mrs Bucket cares for the grandparents and Charlie, and the 7 of them try to survive on one man’s minimum wage job. In this production Mrs Bucket works to try and keep the household afloat following the passing of Mr Bucket. Mr Bucket is the character who sings That’s My Son. I just assumed Mrs Bucket would sing it instead, or maybe even the grandparents.

What actually happened, was that song was cut from the show entirely.

Was the show good? Yes, it absolutely was. Are my memories of this show marred by the casting choices which led to the elimination of probably my favourite song from the soundtrack? I’m afraid so.