Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

I should start by saying that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is one of my all-time favourite films.  It was seeing the London Palladium production in 2002 that got me hooked on musicals and since then the show has always held a special place in my heart.  Sitting on the back row of the Balcony in the Carnegie Theatre, meant that I could not only take in WADAMS’ fantastic production from afar, but also watch the audience’s reaction throughout and from the first note of the French Horn solo of the overture, it was quite clear that the audience lapped up the performances from the talented company as we were taken on a magical journey to Vulgaria.

So many reviews of Chitty state that the ‘star of the show’ is the car itself, but behind every car, there has to be a good engine – and in this instance, that engine is the stage crew.   The stage show, like the film moves along very quickly and requires slick scene changes to keep the plot moving along so that momentum doesn’t drop. The stage crew, led by Emily Houghton, tackled these very well and shifted some overly cumbersome set pieces on and off stage with ease.  It’s very rare I can watch a show and not map out what is happening backstage, but even I, knowing how small the wings of the theatre are thought to myself at one point “where on earth are they keeping all this stuff?!”. Hats off to you all.

Not trying to replicate the performance of Dick Van Dyke in the movie, Andrew McMinn made the role of the madcap inventor Caractacus Potts his own, acting the role with charm and charisma and sang the haunting lullaby Hushabye Mountain, very poignantly.

Evie Askew gave a polished performance as our leading lady, Truly Scrumptious.  Lovely, Lonely Man is a song often forgot about from the film and I thought she did a marvellous job at delivering it.

Kim Hazzard and Daniel MacCreedy were a delight to watch as the child-loathing Baron & Baroness Bomburst.  Seeing natural chemistry between performers on stage is always a joy and Kim and Daniel did not disappoint.  All the laughs were in the right places and the audience couldn’t get enough of their rendition of their duet – a Chu-Chi Woo-Chi pair indeed!

Leading the comic subplot, Sarah Deans and Elizabeth Corless stepped up to the mark as the suitably Anglicised spies Boris and Goran.  I really enjoyed their take on the very wordy,  Act English. Despite being written in a male key, they handled the vocal range with confidence and clearly enjoyed working with each other.

A special mention must go to Eric Finlay who, thanks to some brilliant facial postiches, was transformed beyond recogntion for his portrayal of Grandpa Potts.  He played the role to absolute perfection and I’d go so far as to say it was the best I’ve ever seen Eric perform.  It was understated, never over the top, never a caricature – it was perfect.

I felt some of the lighting states could have been realised a little better.  Lighting a show is one of the most important elements of a production for me and I imagine having an almost entirely white set proved tricky to light during the technical rehearsals.  Take the opening number for example -  I knew exactly through the inventive staging what the production team was trying to achieve, but having one lighting state makes it tricky to differentiate between locations and periods of time -particularly when happening at once.  The same can be said for the flight sequences, whilst they were brilliantly staged (and gave me goosebumps!), I noticed the car was lit internally from the dashboard, so you could have afforded for the main lighting state to be little lower to help distract the eye from the hydraulic mechanism. Be brave with lighting! As the transition from the Children’s Bedroom to the Funfair demonstrated, sometimes less is more and can be really effective.

The large production numbers were very well choreographed by Linzi Wilkinson and Adam MacCreedy. There were some lovely formations peppered throughout amongst the routines, always giving me something interesting to look at.  Me Ol’ Bamboo was a particular standout, exuding energy and earned a very well-deserved ovation from the crowd.

Considering the orchestra was remoted under the stage, the pit musicians led by Musical Director Mark Hazzard played the score well.  The sound mix wasn’t quite right on night I attended and a lot of the rich orchestrations were lost.  Sadly, this is one of the perils of remoting live musicians without having extra P.A at your disposal – you lose the connection between players and the performer. Kudos to Mark for keeping it all together so well as there is a LOT of music in this show.

There were moments however where the Orchestra, Singers and Sound Desk aligned and it sounded totally brilliant – and again Mark must be commended for his work. When the ensemble sang as one, it was a pleasure to listen to, particularly in the more lyrical based numbers like the Opening and Toot Sweets.  The work that had gone into the teaching and learning of those parts were evident throughout.

Thank you WADAMS for a fantastic night and congratulations to Director Daniel MacCreedy for having the nerve to tackle such a mammoth show and bring the very best out of his cast and crew.  The standing ovation that the audience gave you all really speaks volumes. 

I hope you look back on the production with pride – it was fantasmagorical!

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