A Roald Dahl tea? It reminds me more of Jimmy Savile

One Aldwych, an Edwardian grand hotel near Waterloo Bridge, is serving a Jimmy Savile tribute tea. It is not explicitly called a Jimmy Savile tribute tea; of course it is not. That would be tasteless, and people would not come to One Aldwych to eat it; it might, in fact, be lucky enough to get a picket, a dazzling marketing dream. No, it is called the Scrumdiddlyumptious Afternoon Tea and it is tied, in sugary, monetised chains, to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a musical featuring a man dressed as a Fisher-Price toy (and possible diabetic), child torture and obesity, and explicit abuse of small minority workers, which is playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane nearby. (Or as the blurb says: ‘Every item reflects the wit and wonder of Roald Dahl’s classic tale.’ Wit? Really? Surely they mean malice?)

But still this tea looks like the jangling BBC monster, the plastic sociopath in bad clothes. It reeks of candy-stripes and childish terrors and of pederasty; of the horror of ribbons and bells; of the wickedness of soft play centres and turquoise and baby pink; of the evils of sugar, the original and most deadly of all narcotics.

You begin quite calmly, in the huge bright lobby, a banking lobby (formerly Prudential Assurance and Lloyds TSB), with the savouries — excellent sandwiches of salmon and cucumber, a miraculous tart, or flan, of leek and stilton, and tomato. Even so, One Aldwych is sliding into insanity on doughnuts with this one; flowers hang in coloured waves from the ceiling, doing things flowers are not meant to do, and adults (there are no children here) cackle at the food, looking back at desolate childhood years in hunger, or attempt to be macho while drinking a milkshake designed for someone much smaller.