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“Hodge admired Wilder’s performance but didn't want to reproduce it - for practical as well as artistic reasons. ‘I'm working in a different medium,’ he says. ‘I really admire Gene Wilder's version, but his energy - that druggy, transcendental, gently enigmatic thing - is different from what I require to sing huge songs and fill a theatre full of children. There's a different engine powering a big West End musical.” — Lucy Mangan
Hodge admired Wilder’s performance but didn't want to reproduce it - for practical as well as artistic reasons. ‘I'm working in a different medium,’ he says. ‘I really admire Gene Wilder's version, but his energy - that druggy, transcendental, gently enigmatic thing - is different from what I require to sing huge songs and fill a theatre full of children. There's a different engine powering a big West End musical.