Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

From the opening note of the Overture to the last note of the Chitty Flies Home finale the 70 members of this group, along with the 11 piece orchestra, filled the theatre with wonderful music, step perfect choreography and excellent acting skills. Alexander Denison as Caractacus Potts gave an outstanding performance. His confidence in all the aspects required by the character – singing, dancing and acting – belied his youthful years. During his rendition of the lullaby “Hushabye Mountain” you could have heard a pin drop and his strong voice shone through in the more rumbustious numbers like “Me Ol’ Bamboo” and the title song “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. Grace Cowie as his love interest Truly Scrumptious lived up to the character name with a beautiful singing voice, as shown in her rendition of “Doll on a Music Box”, and a good stage presence. Lauren Taylor as Jeremy and India Esson as Jemima, Caractucus’s children, also gave very strong performances and I particularly liked their rendition of “Truly Scrumptious”. Alistair Dornan was a towering Grandpa Potts dominating the stage. He had two of my favourite songs in the show “Posh!” with his grandchildren and “The Roses of Success” with the Inventors and the ensemble both of which he delivered with gusto. Zak Leyni and Conrad MacLean as the inept Vulgarian spies Boris and Goran had the audience in stitches at their antics to procure Chitty for their master and at their rendition of the song “Think Vulgar”. Matthew Hughes and Lucy Parfitt as Baron and Baroness Bomhurst were another excellent comic pairing and their rendition of “Chu-Chi Face” was priceless. They also showed their terpsichorean skills in a wonderful rendition of “The Bombie Samba” with the ensemble. Strong support was given by Nicholas Faber-Johnstone (Lord Scrumptious), Emma-Grace Davies (Miss Philips), Noah Campbell (Mr Coggins), Laura Jones (Childcatcher) and Tanai Daspan (Toymaker). Special mention must be made of the true star of the show the magical, fantasmagorical car Chitty Chitty Bang Bang designed and built specially for the show by Martin Innes and Alan Webster. The multi level set was kept simple allowing plenty of space on the stage floor for the large company numbers not to look too crowded. The singing and dancing in the company numbers was excellent. The orchestra under the baton of Kenny Hossick made a super sound always in balance with the youthful voices on stage. Costuming of such a large cast can sometimes be a bit haphazard but no such thing happened in this case – costuming was appropriate to the era and characters. Well done everyone at Aberdeen Youth Music Theatre for delivering a top class show fully deserving of the standing ovation and prolonged applause received.

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