A new cast is bringing the same magic as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory enters its second year as a West End sensation.

Jonathan Slinger has slipped seamlessly into the role as Willy Wonka, the chocolatier mysterio who makes sweet-toothed children’s dreams – and nightmares – come true.

Detailing every highlight of this mind-blowing retelling of the Roald Dahl classic would leave this review running to more pages than the original book.

Most will be familiar with the tale in which kind, honest, impoverished Charlie Bucket wins a golden ticket to Wonka’s labyrinth-like laboratory where “pure imagination” helps create the world’s most daring and delicious confectionary.

The current musical adaption, directed by Sam ‘Skyfall’ Mendes and playing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane since 2013, has added a few “noughties” touches to the 1971 film version starring Gene Wilder.

It’s most notable in the horrific child characters who accompany Charlie to the factory where their vile avarice is punished in spectacularly-crafted fashion.

Mike is a bawling, brawling uber-brat with a shoot-’em-up video game fetish, while Violet, a bubble gum-blowing fame seeker, could’ve stepped straight from the X-Factor audition queue.

Her explosive, ticker tape-splattering demise, having swollen the size of a giant blueberry, was among many show-stopping moments.

The ingenious appearance of Wonka’s roly-poly helpers, the Oompa-Loompas, earned another huge cheer and their fluorescent, techno-powered dance routine which saw off Mike drew breath from audience members young and old.

As we discovered in an aftershow behind-the-scenes tour, magicians have a sleight of hand in a number of the production’s reality-defying moments such as Wonka’s stupefying disappearance during the performance’s finale.

Our guide told us it involved traditional distraction techniques “and a trapdoor” but as is right and proper, our man would reveal no more.

However, he did let on that Wonka’s chocolate river set contained “real sweets” which actors chewed during scenes.

Sadly, the sugary treats had been snaffled by the time my two accomplices – my daughter and her friend – and I were allowed to forage about the props.

For all the dazzling pyrotechnics, dizzying song, dance and technicolour stage wizardry, at the show’s heart is warmth and humour.

There’s shades of darkness, too, but the moral of Dahl’s original tale still glimmers like a sumptuous, silky smooth Wonka Bar.

Two years on, Charlie remains the capital’s golden theatre ticket.

For booking and ticket information visit www.CharlieandtheChocolateFactory.com or call the box office on 0844 8588877. For backstage tours, visit www.reallyusefultheatres.co.uk.