Fan of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Join Lucy Mangan for webchat, 10 September, 9-10pm

[RachelMumsnet]

Author and PPA Columnist of the Year Lucy Mangan is joining us on Wednesday 10 September between 9 and 10pm for a webchat about her latest book, Inside Charlie's Chocolate Factory.

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Charlie, Lucy has delved deep into the archive to present the story behind Roald Dahl's best-loved classic. Bringing together rare extracts, unseen characters and early designs from the book, as well as behind-the-scenes photographs and actors? personal accounts from both stage and screen adaptations, Mangan explores the cultural impact of one of the most widely loved children?s stories of all time.

She will be taking your questions about all things Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the evening of Wednesday 10th September, including why there were originally ten children in the factory and why some chapters didn't make the cut. Save the date or post your questions or thoughts on the book to Lucy on this thread and watch this space for info about some great prizes to be won during the webchat.

[RachelMumsnet]

@ibbydibby

Sorry can't join in - Rachelmumsnet - you might want to delete this message after you have read it, but I noticed massive typo in announcement..

"Webchat tonight: Join journalist Lucy Mangan for a discussion tonight about Dahl's best loved classic and her latest book, which presents the story behind the gates of Wonker's factory. Take part in the chat and find out about the Charlie goodies up for grabs."

Shouldn't it be Wonka...?

My sincere apologies to all Wonka fans {shuffles off to dunce corner}

[JuJuHeyHey]

Hi Lucy,

I was thinking about the research you did for the book - I hope it was both as fun as the book is and as interesting as Dahl's life appeared to be. My question is, did you discover anything which made you sit back in surprise or jump up and down and hug yourself with glee? I'm hoping for a little golden nugget of a fact you loved finding out about!

Looking forward to all your answers and reading the book.

[LucyMangan]

Hello everyone! Thanks for coming! Are you sitting comfortably? Shall we begin? :)

[thewomaninwhite]

Definitely :) It's great to 'see' you here Lucy.

[LucyMangan]

@fuzzpig

Hi Lucy,

Sounds like a really interesting book! Funnily enough the next chapter book we are reading is Charlie :) she's already enjoyed a couple of other RD books.

I would love to know what made you want to write about this book in particular - is it a story you've always loved?

Hello fuzzpig! This is my first post, so apologies if all you get is gibberish - I'm on my own at home and operating at the very outer limits of my technological capabilities, but here goes...
I have always loved the book – I don’t actually remember the first time I read it, but my earliest memory of the book itself is of it falling apart because I’d read it so much, so…It’s always been there. I’ve always adored it (and the Twits, Witches, George’s MM and all the rest). And I’ve now read it 947 times as an adult in the service of putting Inside the Chocolate Factory (hereafter known as ICF, because the child was up vomiting last night and my typing speed is consequently not all that it might be) together and I still love it, so it MUST be good. But I wasn’t aware that it was fifty years old or that there could be a book about it until Puffin came to me and asked me to write it. I said yes before they’d finished the sentence, which is the kind of thing that makes your agent really cross with you, I discovered.

[RachelMumsnet]

Horrah ! you're here. Welcome to the boards Lucy Mangan. We're really looking forward to an hour's chat about all things WONKA.

[Chrissieoates]

What drew you to this subject? Was it a childhood favourite?

[LucyMangan]

@thewomaninwhite

Do you still get caught up with just how dark the book is in places? I have read it a few times and watched both films (first is better!) but still feel surprised on each reading/watching about the darkness. Perhaps it is just me! I like that by the way, it is not a criticism.

Thank you for the welcome, womaninwhite! Thewomaninwhite – yes, totally! I think that’s one of the reasons it’s almost more interesting to read as an adult. But then a lot of books reveal themselves differently when you return to them in later life – Teddy Robinson, for example, is properly hilarious. And the Milly Molly Mandy stories are, as Frank Cottrell Boyce once called them, miniature masterpieces – incredibly delicate, light, lovely work. Or, at the other end of the scale, Patrick Ness’ Monsters of Men trilogy contains all you could ask of any work of literature, for children, adults or the YAs it’s officially aimed at. And Meg Rosoff's The Bride's Farewell contains so much that is wonderful in such a tiny space that I keep asking her to write a "full length" version just for me so that I can savour it for longer. Or a sequel. I'd settle for a sequel.

[Chrissieoates]

Ooooh and are you a chocaholic?!?!?

[thewomaninwhite]

Thanks Lucy! Some ideas for me to re read as an adult too. Much appreciated :)

[LucyMangan]

@Chrissieoates

What drew you to this subject? Was it a childhood favourite?

Money. No, not really. The full answer is under fuzzpig's question, which I think is somewhere towards the bottom of the page...although that depends how you've got the page arranged, doesn't it? Oh man, this is too complicated for 9 o'clock at night... Does everyone else only manage to get to bed at midnight, though, however hard they try? Or is it just me, and I'm doing everything even wronger than I thought?

[LucyMangan]

@fruitpastille

Hi Lucy,
I am also a fan of your column and particularly enjoy your writing about children's books - I have all my old ones alphabetized and awaiting re reading by the DC I love Roald Dahl añd even inadvertently named two of my children after his characters!

Do you have a favourite character/chapter in Charlie and the chocolate factory? And do you have a favourite in any of the other books?

Hi fruitpastille – what a singularly apt name for this chat you have! Thank you very much – delighted you like the columns. I’m in the process of writing a book about children’s books, as a result of those book columns. It’s due in in June and I’m already behind, though :(
Favourite character – of the ones lost before publication, Miranda Mary Piker, definitely. She’s one of the original ten characters Dahl wrote in his first draft – the insufferable child of progressive parents who believe in self-expression instead of manners and discipline. When asked if the sugar daffodils she has picked are for her mother, she says "No! I'm to gobble them up all by myself!" "You see," responds her mother delightedly, "what an interesting child she is!" You can practically hear the howl of rage and pain from a writer born in 1916 and now writing in the early-mid 60s as hippies begin to wreck everything…
Otherwise - Augustus Gloop. I don’t like to think what my reaction would be, presented with a river of chocolate. I think he was remarkably restrained. Overall, though, Wonka. I wouldn’t want to be married to him, but he’d be great to have an affair with. I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.

[Chrissieoates]

Funny you should say that I had a mad crush on Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka when I was younger! Maybe it was because of the food association!!

[LucyMangan]

@BookABooSue

Hi Lucy,

I love your column.

When I read the article about the book, I was surprised how many drafts there were. Somehow I'd always assumed CATCF had sprung forth almost fully formed! Were you surprised how many drafts it went through before reaching the final version?

Also, were there any aspects of the drafts that you wish Dahl had kept in the original?

Hi BookABooSue - thank you!
I’m like you – I always assumed that it had sprung forth fully formed! But there are five surviving drafts and it’s clear that he destroyed at least one other.
But I think maybe we all do that with books in childhood, assume that they came easily and perfectly, and that they’re just THERE, for our delectation and delight. But I still, TBH, think it even now – I subconsciously, or even consciously, assume that every article or book I read just emerged like that, even though I know from my own frigging experience and the repeated testimony of friends that it doesn’t happen like that for anyone. Except for total freaks of nature like Enid Blyton, who at her peak was writing 10,000 words a day because, as she once explained to a psychologist who wrote to her asking her to take part in a research project he was doing into the creative process, she just “lifted up the top of her own head” and wrote down what the characters there were doing and saying. Which explains almost everything about her writing I think. Roald Dahl spent an evening with her once, playing bridge, and found her unbearable – “she had the mind of a child.”
I don’t think I wish he’d kept any of the earlier stuff – he really did improve the story each time he rewrote it – except of course MM Piker, and some of the other children’s names; Herpes Trout being a particular favourite of mine.

[LucyMangan]

@Chrissieoates

Funny you should say that I had a mad crush on Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka when I was younger! Maybe it was because of the food association!!

No. No, no, no. That wiry ginger hair precludes any kind of sexual involvement. Good God, woman, keep the ginger love with Damian Lewis, where it belongs.

[LucyMangan]

@SundayGirl79

I'm a big fan of Lucy Mangans and would love to know what she thinks of the new jacket cover that has just been published. ITS ALL WRONG!!! I look forwards to the webchat on Wednesday.

Hi SundayGirl79, and thank you very much.
I can see what they were going for – playing up the sinister aspect, and maybe the notion (very clear in the book) that parents mould their children, that awfulness does not occur in a vacuum – but it’s not the way I personally would have gone. I think that image to most of us connotes the premature sexualisation of children and the predatory evil this attracts, which of course has nothing to do with the book. But again, I suspect the designers were slightly outpaced by events – Yewtree and Rotherham etc have brought all that to the very forefront of our minds and make it even harder to see what was, I’m sure, the different evocations intended.
PS I see StillNoFuckingEyeDeer feels your pain

[LucyMangan]

@curlyclaz13

I love Charlie and the Chocolate factory and read it every year, I have already read it to DS and he is only 15 months
Which invention from the book would you like to try in real life ? I quite fancy trying Butter Gin ! although stickjaw would be handy at work.

We're all on the Butter Gin, aren't we? looks alarmed, unhooks tonic drip

[IdaBlankenship]

Hi Lucy & belated congratulations on the smallest member of your family.
Do you think that the reason CATCF is the most beloved of Roald Dahl's books is that it is the least dark of his children's books (IMHO)?
I was faintly traumatised as a child by The Twits, James & The Giant Peach and The Witches (although compelled to re-read them)

[LucyMangan]

@StillNoFuckingEyeDeer

I was going to ask the same as Starlings - I feel the same as fuzzpig.
I would like to know if you think the Wonka chocolates and sweets are good enough to carry the Wonka name - for me they lack the true bizarre Wonka imagination, but I think it's a sign of how influential the story is that it inevitably became a brand for sale in real life.

Hi StillNoFuckingEyeDeer
I feel exactly the same. I think they were always doomed to frustration in a way – obviously nothing can actually measure up to the real (fictional) thing! – but I think even allowing for that, they fall short. But I understand there are plans afoot to change that.

[fuzzpig]

I think that's the first time I've ever had a webchat question answered, thanks Lucy! :o

As a follow up if there's time - do you think there'll ever be another Dahl? In terms of whimsy/inventiveness etc...

[Chrissieoates]

What other Dahl books do you admire Lucy?

[LucyMangan]

@Upandatem

Loved reading the book to DS1 recently and remember it well from when I was a child.

The children aren't very sympathetically drawn and neither were some of the grandparents. Why do you think this is? Sign of the times? Some deserving /undeserving thing? Did Dahl like kids?

He did like kids, absolutely. He was an assiduous replier to fan mail from them, he adored his own children and his grandchildren. His nephew Nicholas (the first ever reader of the first Charlie draft) still speaks about him with adoration. And he always insisted on having as many illustrations as possible - Quentin Blake says he would happily change the description of characters too if it would make for a better picture - to help children enjoy themselves as they read.
I think he was less keen on the complexities that come with adolescence (aren't we all?) but I think the unsympathetic characters are more to do with the fact that he isn't aiming at realism or rounded characterisations. It's a modern fairy tale so it deals similarly in stock figures, simple vices and virtues and melodrama rather than totally fair or rational punishments. And I think what happens alongside and almost as a result of the brio with which he pursues that, is that he shows himself to be on the reader's, the real child's side and that's what they respond to.

[fuzzpig]

Oh and best wishes to your vomiting child (I would do the [ cake ] emoticon but that seems like a bad idea)