Wonka barge to appear at boat show

A barge which featured in a Hollywood film is to make an appearance at a boat show.

The narrowboat, Renfrew, features in the Wonka film with Timothée Chalamet and will be dropping into the Crick Boat show, in Northamptonshire.

The 70ft (21m) craft will join six other historical working boats and dozens of other vessels at the annual canalside jamboree near Daventry, from 25 to 27 May.

Twenty-five boats are being delivered by crane to the venue alongside the Grand Union Canal.

The film explains how Roald Dahl's eccentric character Willy Wonka became a chocolate magnate.

Renfrew, which is based in Braunston in Northamptonshire, is owned by Peter Boyce, who said: "The plot has the young Willy Wonka living with his mother on a barge in France, smuggling refugees past Germans, and they use an English narrow boat - who was I to argue?

"The action took place at various locations along the River Thames around the Reading area, with all the no-expense-spared trappings you might expect of a major Hollywood production."

Peter Johns, the boat show director, said the event attracted a wide variety of people.

"There are people looking to buy a boat, and get in to boating, there are existing boaters coming just to buy new kit, but also to meet up with old friends, and then we get people from Northamptonshire and further afield who just want a great weekend."

One of the most dramatic sights of the show is seeing 30-tonne narrowboats being lifted into position by crane.

Mr Johns explained: "We have the traditional narrowboat - most of those can float in on the canal, but, where we are on the Leicester section of the Grand Union Canal, it can't take wide-beam boats which are effectively twice the size of a narrowboat."

Stephen Hardy, from the Canal and River Trust, said: "It's almost like the Glastonbury of the boating world."

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