Lucian Piane
Veruca’s Nutcracker Sweet
(Willy Wonka leads them on a high speed tour round the crazy corridors of his factory until, disoriented, they arrive at The Nut Room where the factory nuts are tested by a small army of trained squirrels sitting at a conveyor belt. Good nuts are kept and bad nuts thrown away. Veruca demands a squirrel. When Willy refuses, she takes matters into her own hands. When she gets to the conveyor belt she is grabbed by a squirrel and tested. BAD NUT! Suddenly the room fills with Oompa-loompas riding on the back of giant squirrels. They dance a nightmarish ballet before ushering Veruca and her father down the bad nut chute.)

[SQUIRREL]
BAD NUT!

[VERUCA, spoken]
Daddy, what’s happening?

[MR. SALT, spoken]
Wonka, she’s headed for the nut cracker!

[OOMPA-LOOMPAS]
Veruca Salt, the débutante
She’s always screaming “I want, I want”
We hope she wants last month’s chow mein
As she jetés down the garbage drain

[VERUCA, spoken]
Help!

[OOMPA-LOOMPAS]
Veruca Salt, the silly cow
Her maddening mantra was “now, now, now!”
But now hang a bell on the little brute
As she pas de bourrées down the bad nut chute
Yes, now she’ll join the trash below
So spoiled and so rotten
The fish head from a week ago
Some Gouda long forgotten

A bacon rind, some left out lard
A loaf of bread gone stale and hard
A rotten tooth, a reeky pear
A thing the cat left on the stair

Veruca salt, the pampered miss
Will now fouetté to a foul abyss
So take a whiff, for it’s awfully ripe
Her new address: the sewer pipe

[WILLY WONKA, spoken]
Stomach in, chest out.

[MR. SALT, spoken]
Wonka, for God’s sake, help her!

[WILLY WONKA, spoken]
I can’t, her posture is terrible.

[OOMPA-LOOMPAS]
Veruca salt, the selfish tot
Was never good with the things she got
But it’s not just vicious Veruca’s fault
This rancid recipe demands another dash of salt
[MR. SALT, spoken]
Veruca, Daddy’s coming!

[OOMPA-LOOMPAS]
Blame her father and her mother
That Veruca will reside
With the rubbish and the other
Wasteful things she’s tossed aside

To the furnace we bequeath her
See the squirrels as they are swarming
Thought recycling was beneath her
She’s the cause of global warming

[MR. SALT, spoken]
Get away from me, you, you dirty rodent!

[OOMPA-LOOMPAS]
Veruca salt, the wicked witch
Will soon develop a nasty itch
We’ll soon hear the twit screaming “mine, all mine!”
From deep down below where the sun don’t shine

[SQUIRRELS & OOMPA-LOOMPAS]
BAD NUT!