Willies Wonky Chocolate Factory

[Ace]

Enjoying this on More4 (Freeview). Missed it first time around, and whilst it is good TV, I cannot stand Willie who fancies himself as a world authoritan on chocolate and am willing him to fuck it all up.
He's poncing around trying to flog his product and whining he's seriously in debt with bailiffs due any day, and does he look concerned? Does he fuck!! he threw a dinner party that had fresh oysters and braised partridge, hardly food from Farm Foods, for his poncey friends.
It makes me laugh when he dismisses expert pastry chefs who DARE critisise his cocoa product.
As I said, whilst his dream to succeed does need to be applauded, and I admire his drive, I hope he fucks up, even so much he has to eat humble pie and then succeed, that'll do me

[crofter]

Caught the first couple of episodes when this originally aired and like most people thought it was going to be quite an interesting and informative programme, but sadly as you say it really is ONLY about this off the wall in your face character and his family - to say that some of the storylines are a bit contrived is a bit of an understatement as well ... but that's todays "Reality Entertainment" for you.

[Ace]

When you have to resort to naming your series ?Willie?s Wonky Chocolate Factory? ? and rely on one of the worst puns ever seen ? then you?re not off to a good start.

Even more galling, though, was the fact that this was as good as the one-hour episode got.

Ostensibly about one man?s struggle to grow his own Venezuelan cocoa beans and manufacture ?the best chocolate in the world? here in the UK, it revolved around the adventures of Willie Harcourt-Cooze and his young family as they sunk all their money into getting the chocolate business off the ground.

Odd, then, that they can still afford to rent a huge mansion after pouring so much money into the new venture.

It started out as a potentially interesting documentary. It?s not often that shows dealing with starting a new business so extensively appear on TV ? even less in a market as interesting and undoubtedly mouth-watering as luxury chocolate.

It soon went downhill though as the actual business of the show was interrupted by cookery segments.

There were traditional chocolate recipes as well as culinary oddities, like fish and risotto with a chocolate infusion.

Unfortunately, most of the so-called ?cookery? seemed to revolve around Harcourt-Cooze grating cocoa on to whatever he?d prepared ? and little else.

Also grating was the camera-work, which took the wobbly, out-of-focus (and typically Channel 4) trend of Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver and exacerbated it to levels of extreme annoyance.

Surely the idea here is to show us the chocolate and not make us feel bloated and ill before we?d had a chance to gorge ourselves?

It didn?t help that Willie himself was intensely annoying.

Too eager to re-tell his personal anecdotes on camera, much of the show seemed to concern the massaging of his (already large) ego ? his self-congratulatory and smug face filling the screen as he tried to convince viewers he is just a normal bloke.

Admittedly, the chocolate looked fantastic ? my mouth began to water when the camera stopped long enough to look at it.

A programme about chocolate should never be a turn-off.

Unfortunately Willie?s self promotion, la-di-da recipes and the nauseating camera work left a bitter taste in my mouth.