Mathew Baynton's experience on Horrible Histories helped prepare him for Wonka's musical numbers

The Wonka actor reflected on his experience on the CBBC show and told Yahoo UK about how it helped his performance as Fickelgruber in the musical.

Transcript

00:00 How did you find doing them and singing for them and putting them together?

00:03 Well I had years of doing songs on Horrible Histories, very silly, lots of choreography.

00:10 Some of them were completely freeform but some of them were choreographed and so I don't

00:15 know, I think I'd got past any discomfort I ever had about that stuff.

00:21 So I just was really excited, and particularly excited because Neil Hannan wrote the songs

00:25 for this who I was a huge fan of.

00:28 I was just delighted that we got a number.

00:32 I remember finding out that there were songs and that Neil had written them and then the

00:37 next thought is, but do we get one?

00:39 And we do.

00:41 So it was just pure joy for me.

00:44 Whereas I was in terror because I find it very, I don't do musicals.

00:48 You never showed that you were in terror.

00:49 No I didn't want to burden everybody with my weeping and my, I don't do this.

00:55 And then as soon as we got the choreography together and I realised I could remember the

01:00 steps, more and more I started to get more and more showboy and then I was just in front

01:05 doing a lot of that terrible cheap huckster.

01:09 But I loved it and the song itself was like an earworm that never left you.

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