United Kingdom Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, 12.11.2024. (JPr)
Well you win some and then you lose some! The 1968 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang film has long been a favorite of mine and I am old enough to have seen it when it first came out and several times since. It was loosely based on Ian Fleming’s 1964 children’s novel about a magical car and the script by Ken Hughes (the film’s director), Roald Dahl and Richard Maibaum took a number of liberties with the story. Sadly, Fleming died before the book was published and, of course, long before the film was made. Thankfully, he was also saved from seeing Jeremy Sams’s 2002 adaptation, though I still believe spinning sounds can be heard from the graveyard in Sevenhampton, Wiltshire, every time it gets to the stage. It is supposedly based on the musical adventure film but is as much based on that as Peter Pan – seen at Christmas in theatres throughout the UK – follows J M Barrie’s original. Courtesy of current director Thom Southerland, what Sams has given us is merely Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – The Pantomime. Like most pantos the story doesn’t really hang together and the songs from the Sherman Brothers we are familiar with (and others we aren’t) are just shoehorned into it for the most part.
Plotwise it should be about Caractacus Potts a doting single father to daughter Jemima and son Jeremy living in a windmill in the southern England countryside. He is an eternally optimistic, yet failed inventor though hoping to raise money for the neglected former racing car his children have fallen love with. Caractacus tries to sell a sweet – he has accidentally invented that can toot – to Lord Scrumptious owner of a local candy factory. Chaos ensues when all the whistling attracts a pack of dogs. Caractacus visits a local fair with his hair-cutting machine with similarly disastrous results before joining something of a Morris dancing troupe for the famous song and dance number ‘Me Ol’ Bamboo’. With the tips he gets for his performance Caractacus buys the car, restores it, and names it ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ because of noises it makes. Caractacus, Jemima, Jeremy, and Lord Scrumptious’s daughter, Truly, who takes an interest in the children go for a picnic on the beach where Caractacus tells them all a story about how Baron Bombast, tyrannical ruler of the fictional Vulgaria, attempts to steal Chitty.
Sams makes the Baron, his baroness, and his two bungling henchmen, named Boris and Goran, central to the plot. The car that becomes Chitty was sabotaged by the Vulgarians it was racing against and crashed during a Grand Prix in the early 1900s and for some reason (the opening to the show is very rushed and garbled) the Baron wants to purchase what is left of it. I won’t waste too much more time on what you see apart from suggesting it all descends quickly into Carry On Up the Car-ber territory with low farce, multiple double entendres – references to spotted dick particularly – and stereotypical gay characters (think John Inman’s Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served?). By the time we were told about the Baron’s ‘birthday bottom burps’ I was losing the will to live. Plus, there are lengthy scenes prolonging the musical’s running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes (with interval). Boris and Goran get (‘Act English’) which rips-off ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’ by the gangsters in Kiss Me, Kate and the Baroness has ‘The Bombie Samba’ which is a comedy dance skit any panto dame would be happy with.
Despite all the colourful costumes there is some utilitarian packing case scenery and visible puppeteers controlling ‘dogs’ so raggedy they must have been the 2002 originals! When Grandpa Potts is kidnapped by the Vulgarians and his hut (outside toilet?) is hooked to an airship and carried away it is shown as toy miniatures on the end of a fishing rod chased by a risible model size Chitty. It is on the full-sized car where all the money for this production was spent. As good as it looks, the hydraulics and other special effects don’t show it moving on water or flying in the sky very well. The backdrops are perfunctory and since it is now 2024 an LED screen with suitable imagery would have been much more magical.
Indeed Chitty – as we know it – does not appear for almost a full hour with small children clearly becoming restless, as was this ‘child’ who has just completed his seventh decade! And so it continues, there is nothing really sinister about the Baron and Baroness who are just two typical panto baddies; their Childcatcher – played so menacingly in the film by Sir Robert Helpmann – sees The Vivienne going OTT and chewing the scenery as if it was still The Wizard of Oz (review here). And do we really need the repeated mentions of how the ‘c’ word is not to be used in Vulgaria … ‘c’ for children! Eventually we get the expected happy ending but after all the longueurs it comes in a mad rush.
I cannot fault the talented ensemble’s enthusiasm and for the most part everyone is rushing about either moving the scenery (such as it is) or singing and dancing Karen Bruce’s lively, energetic chorography. Most of the cast have been touring for several months now and the singing by the principals lacks some freshness, even if it wasn’t secondary to the mix of high-jinks and low comedy, though I couldn’t fault the playing of the music by the small band of nine under MD Jessica Viner. Adam Garcia was a personable enough Caractacus Potts, though no Dick Van Dyke and sounding oddly like Jim Dale (another Carry On connection!); Ellie Nunn is a feistier Truly Scrumptious than the film’s Sally Ann Howes; though Liam Fox’s Grandpa Potts rekindled memories of Lionel Jeffries. Martin Callaghan (Baron), Jenny Gayner (Baroness), Adam Stafford (Boris) and Michael Joseph (Goran) seemed to have huge fun in roles greatly expanded from those in the film.
My final words are for the excellent children onstage whether Lara Simon (Jemima) and Charlie Banks (Jeremy) or those from Expression Theatre Arts we see briefly in the second half. How great it is to see such wonderful young talent involved in something they will never forget, regardless of how I felt about it all!
Jim Pritchard
For more about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on tour click here.
Cast:
Adam Garcia – Caractacus Potts
Liam Fox – Grandpa Potts
The Vivienne – The Childcatcher
Ellie Nunn – Truly Scrumptious
Martin Callaghan – Baron
Jenny Gayner – Baroness
Adam Stafford – Boris
Michael Joseph – Goran
John Macaulay – The Toymaker
Charlie Banks – Jeremy
Lara Simon – Jemima
Creatives:
Music and Lyrics – Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman
Stage adaptation – Jeremy Sams
Director – Thom Southerland
Designer – Morgan Large
Choreographer – Karen Bruce
Musical supervisor – George Dyer
Original orchestrations – Chris Walker
Music director – Jessica Viner
Lighting designer – Ben Cracknell
Sound designer – Gareth Tucker
Children coordinator – Harry Blumenau
Associate Choreographer – Lauren Stroud
Resident Director – Simon Greiff