Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Jr

This company had the very difficult task of setting up a performance space and audience in a bright church with a huge amount of windows letting in sunlight on a glorious sunny afternoon. They had done their best to cover up most of it with some black material and had set up two portable lighting rigs on either side of the stage. A full black out was unachievable, but the bright, sunny personalities of a group of smiling children brought the sunshine in to this wonderfully joyous production.

We were introduced to the star of the show, Chitty, which was cleverly imagined using actors dressed in the same colours as the car parts, personifying it through physical theatre, a good use of props and sound scaping from the performers.  Another clever idea was to have Truly arrive with the front half of a motorbike constructed from metal, successfully suggesting a full vehicle. In such a small stage area, I thought that this showed a great deal of creativity from the Production Team.

This was one well-rehearsed show with every actor demonstrating total ownership of their roles whether as a lead character or as a member of a tightly drilled ensemble. They all wore radio mics which I am sure gave them a sense of responsibility and status and which allowed us to hear the story clearly as it unfolded. Some actors portrayed both lead roles and ensemble parts which is a great lesson in teamwork and certainly made the dream work!

This production was an excellent example of stagecraft and I could tell that the training that these young actors receive is paving the way not only for future performance development but for other important areas such as quick changes, use of challenging spaces, how to ad lib when a cast member is late to the stage (superbly and professionally done by the actor playing Miss Phillips) and collaboration. The cast also acted competently as stage crew moving set around ensuring fluidity of the proceedings and pace.

The actor playing Potts handled such a pivotal role with confidence and strong vocals. I would however mention to him not to fiddle with radio mic as this can be very distracting to the audience and pulls focus from your excellent characterisation. The actor playing Coggins had good vocal projection and a clear understanding of how to command the stage even though the role was small. Truly Scrumptious had a beautiful voice and was a confident actor. I do feel that her portrayal of the character showed a bit too much attitude but this was obviously her own interpretation and gave us a different side to contemplate. She portrayed good acting through song, in particular, her beautiful rendition of Doll on a Music box.

These young actors had impeccable comedy timing, which shone through from hilarious and articulate performances from Grandpa Potts, Boris the Spy, The Baron and The Turkey Farmer. The actor playing the Baroness managed to sustain a difficult accent and when her radio mic played up, she continued singing with extra projection showing experience and a professional attitude. Her performance alongside her husband , The Baron, demonstrated a textbook example of a comedy partnership.

A special mention to the actor in the fairground scene who was the victim of Potts’ hair cutting machine. The special effect using a wig cap didn’t quite work but this did not faze him at all and he retained focus both in his delivery of lines and his overall performance.

We were treated to some unexpected audience participation as the boos came thick and fast upon each entrance of the Child Catcher and subsequent episodes of dastardly behaviour. The actor played a suitably scary role exploring physicality and gestures, appropriately imagined in light of a young audience. A lovely juxtaposed performance to this was provided by the actor playing the Toy Maker who had excellent storytelling skills and kept the pace up as we headed towards the ending of the show.

The ensemble were utterly fantastic and supportive, displaying strong vocals, well learnt lyrics, buckets of confidence, a real maturity with regards to how they entered and exited the space, waited for cues, tackled numerous costume changes and characterisation and kept up a high level of energy throughout.

The wardrobe department provided appropriate and colourful costumes with different outfits provided for each new scene which must have presented as a real challenge. The choreography team kept it simple ensuring that the cast were well drilled and presented as a strong ensemble. I particularly liked the use of the toot sweets to conduct in the song of the same name. The props used helped to portray the storyline effectively and I really liked the use of the lifebuoy on the steering wheel to symbolise Chitty in the water and the wings on the two back wheels to show that they were now flying in the air. Simple yet very effective.

This was a real community effort led by a hugely supportive team of adults who are obviously working extremely hard to provide the youth of Saltash an inclusive experience in the Arts. There was so much attention to detail showing that everybody deserves the opportunity to be involved in a top class production and looking at these talented youngsters perform, I could tell that they were having an enormous amount of fun whilst learning some valuable experience of theatre production and performance through their participation in this well directed piece. Congratulations to all involved

Nina Jarram

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.