Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Watlington Village Hall was virtually filled to capacity, with the entire run almost sold out for this iconic show. Future memories for children in the audience and childhood memories for the adults of a beloved film from 1968, original story by Ian Flemming and screenplay by Roald Dahl.

Had we come to see a great musical from 2002 or were we hoping to see THE CAR.

This was the opening night and there were a few glitches with sound, back cloths flying in and a little bit of off note singing, however this did not distract from a very good evening’s entertainment. We had good performances from not only the principals but also the company as a whole. The cast was led by Rowan Fox-Noble as Caractacus and Issy Smith as Truly and Sophie Mycock as Jeremy and Alice Hornsby as Jemima. Rowan and Issy were well matched  and gave great performances, Rowan’s movement and appearance on stage were great, they both sang well (I did think Rowan was a little flat when singing Hushaby Mountain) and Issy was very soft at times, difficult to catch all her dialogue, Their duet and dancing for ‘Doll on a Music Box’ was very good and they acted well together and with the children with good numbers ‘You Two’, ‘Truly Scrumptious’ and of course ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ although I did think that Sophie tended to shout some of her lines. On the whole Sophie and Alice gave good performances and sang and acted well, enjoying their performance in ’POSH’ with Kevin Bush’s Grandpa, who also had a nicely sung ‘Them Three’.

It was nice to see Kathy Philipot as the Baroness with two good numbers ‘Chu-Chi Face’ and ‘Bombie Samba’ alongside Phil Melia as the Baron, he did rather upstage Truly with his hand movements while Truly was performing ‘Doll on a Music Box’, my eyes were drawn to him instead of Truly. They both gave us good vocal and physical performances; I wonder how many of the audience caught the implication of the final line from the Baroness ‘I feel like some ice cream and a pickled onion’. Alongside them we had the comedy of Steve Jackson as Boris and Dale Hornsby as Goran the wonderfully costumed Vulgarian Spies who made a great double act, both visually and vocally. John Macfarlane made a fine Toymaker, rather looking and sounding the part, we also had a rather evil looking Beccy Pooley as the Child catcher, she had the voice and the nose we all expect. There were some rather nice cameos by younger cast members Lee Clifton as Coggins and Chloe Philipot as Miss Phillips and cameos from Steve Brooks as Lord Scrumptious and Emily Prince as the Junkman.

This was also a company show and there were great dance routines and company singing with ‘Me Ol’ Bamboo’, ‘Bombie Samba’, also ‘Toot Sweets’, there was here some very good drilled choregraphy courtesy of Philly Macfarlane with good costumes some of which were hired in and some supplied from the societies own wardrobe and from Judy Parsons (Harvey Costumes). The singing was good with harmonies being heard and of course a great group of well-disciplined children.

The whole production team, and there is a long list of crew in the programme, should be thrilled with the reception the show received from the audience. Congratulations to director Kevin Rooney, choreographer Philly Macfarlane, musical director Carrie Ingram-Gettins and assistant director Frankie Penfold.

Special congratulations to a most amazing Chitty Car, the star who stole the show with her reveal, the movement on a tiny stage and especially for her construction by Barry Ayres, Kevin and their build team, I wish all who read this could have seen her. London Palladium, eat your heart out!

 

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