Cultural indiscretions aside, now’s a very good time to be a fan of all things gobblefunk and scrumdiddlyumptious. Not only do Roald Dahl’s bestselling tales of hard-done-by kiddywinks and awful adults continue to enjoy an enviably prominent place in bookshops around the world but film versions too litter the zeitgeist. Many of them have Netflix to thank. Not Wonka. A year on from Matilda, Paul King’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel spawns from the producers of the Harry Potter films. It chases that same festive dopamine rush that the J. K. Rowling adaptations delivered across a much-missed decade and is bang on the money in every way the Fantastic Beasts films never managed to be.

There’s little inherently vital in the concept of an origins story for Dahl’s chocolatier-in-chief, Willy Wonka. Tim Burton’s Charlie did the job back in 2005. Not well, of course, but it was a box ticked for Dahl diehards nonetheless. Though light years less inane than Burton’s dentally inflicted flashbacks, King’s prequel does little to sure up the justification. The fun to be had here is ambling rather than lore heavy. Certainly, it’s hard to link Timothée Chalamet’s playful young Willy to the darker Wonkas of Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp.

The film is, instead, a treat existent in isolation, albeit bolstered by a touch of cocoa dusted familiarity. This is most evident in a score – by Joby Talbot and Neil Hannon – that liberally lifts from Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley’s 1971 treasure trove. In other words, every note Dahl hated about the Mel Stuart film. Doompety doo, indeed.

And yet, Chalamet’s Wonka does feel a better translation of the fluety enthusiast found in Dahl’s original text. The Little Women and Dune star zips and zings about here for all the world like he’s leapt straight from a page in Quentin Blake’s own sketchbook. He’s simply delightful and revels in each of the dialectal gifts bestowed upon him by a delightfully daft script from King and Horrible History veteran Simon Farnaby. That this is the same writing duo who gifted the world Paddington 2 is never in doubt. Wonka hasn’t quite the emotional wallop of that particular marmalade masterpiece but enjoys a similar quaint energy and throws in some extra fart gags for good measure. A steampunk aesthetic, meanwhile, allows for more than a shade of the Dickensian into proceedings.

Set in a sort of composite city of make believe – easily identifiable landmarks from Oxford, Bath and Lyme Regis chop together for the benefit of visual charm – the film chart’s Willy’s odyssey to make a name for himself at the world famous Galleries Gourmet. He has just twelve sovereigns and a hatful of dreams to his name but is driven by the memory of his late mother. In his way stand Patterson Joseph, Matthew Baynton and Matt Lucas, who play Messrs Slugworth, Fickelgruber and Prodnose of the Chocolate Cartel. They’re a kind of snobby Boggis, Bunce and Bean and well aided by Rowan Attkinson’s corrupt cleric, Julius, and his five hundred chocoholic monks. Olivia Colman and Tom Davis, meanwhile, feature as the splendidly named Thenadier types: Mrs. Scrubbit and Bleacher. The performances range from high camp to base pantomime but are all the better for it.

A succession of songs keep things perky, without really resonating, while bonus points are won every time an absurd rhyme for chocolate is dropped into play. Watch out for ‘sky-rockolete’ ‘pockolete’ and ‘round-the-blockolate’. Best of all – the cherry on the chocolate fudge cake – is a small role for Hugh Grant as a haughty Oompa Lumpa named Lofty. What more could one want this Christmas?