In 2023, publishing house Puffin announced it had hired sensitivity readers to ‘rewrite chunks’ of Roald Dahl’s books for children. The aim was to ensure the narratives ‘can continue to be enjoyed by all today’ (McCluskey, Time, February 21, 2023, online), and largely focussed on concerns relating to physical appearance: words such as ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ were removed, while gender-neutral terms were adopted for characters, including the Oompa-Loompas and Cloud-men (now Cloud-people). While the changes provoked the ire of critics and readers who denounced the move as a censorial act of ‘cancel culture’, Dahl has long been a controversial figure with a troubled legacy. As Abraham Foxman notes on the death of the author, ‘Talent is no guarantee of wisdom. Praise for Mr. Dahl as a writer must not obscure the fact that he was also a bigot’ (qu. McCluskey, Time, February 21, 2023, online). The prejudices of the author are profoundly imbricated with the content and language of narratives, which uncritically rely on sexist and racist stereotypes, for example, often echoing the patriarchal values of Empire. Focussing on The Witches and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we examine a series of adaptations attempting to revise the ideological concerns of Dahl’s novels, analysing the transformation of modern classics for the interests of contemporary audiences. As modern fairytales, it makes sense that Dahl’s oeuvre for children might shift and adapt, metamorphosing to align with the demands of cultural change, including expectations for inclusion and language which eschews discrimination. By attending to the socio-historical and political contexts of the stories, however, and the scandal concerning the ‘woke’ textual edits, we argue that the fundamental anxieties produced by Dahl’s stories often remain unchanged, while efforts to update or amend—framed by the rhetoric of controversy—only serves to disguise more problematic ideological messaging.