Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Playhouse Theatre Edinburgh 28th May 2024 Review
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is at the Playhouse Theatre Edinburgh until Saturday 01 June, and for many people in the audience of a certain age, this show will be a trip down Nostalgia Lane to revisit fond childhood memories of the original book by Ian Fleming (1964), the hugely successful film (1968), that song no one has ever really gotten out of their head, and of course that car.
On paper, this show has everything including original music and lyrics by Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman, some of the top costume designers, choreographers, light and sound engineers, set designers and producers in the theatre business involved in this production, plus a very experienced cast. What could possibly go wrong then? An awful lot is the answer to that question, and to be fair it has more to do with the source material than any of the creative and technical people involved here.
On the plus side, there is no faulting anyone’s performance here and Adam Garcia is a very good Caractacus Potts and takes every opportunity given here to put in some very good song and dance routines as well as being believable when the dramatic needs arise for his character. Likewise, Ellie Nunn as the sugary sweet, too good to be true Truly Scrumptious does a good job with this very lightweight role.
At its heart though, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the stage show (as per the film) is essentially an old fashioned song and dance production, and a very specific one with much of its style derived from Edwardian musical theatre, and a very English one at that. This is so often pure vaudeville that often threatens to step over that line into pantomime. Here the heroes are very good and the villains, the Vulgarian Baron and Baroness, performed by Hadrian Delacey and Bibi Jay tonight, have plenty of scope to have a lot of fun with at time some over the top performances that this audience loved.
The two Vulgarian spies, Boris (Adam Stafford) and Goran (Michael Joseph) are pure stereotypes that are dressed and sound like cartoon characters created by Hanna Barbera, and to be fair to them both they do a very good job in their respective roles and there is just enough innuendo in their lines to appeal to the older members of the audience too.
Between the Baron, Baroness and the two spies, we have one of the big problems of this show – have we really not by this time moved past funny foreign accents actually being funny anymore?
The Childcatcher is one character that is well remembered from the original book and film, and Elaine C Smith has that role in this production, but despite her best efforts this child catcher is just not scary enough. Young children should be hiding behind their seats when this character appears, not cheering her on (well maybe that was some of the adults in the audience).
A production like this is, however, one of the few that gives a starring role to young performers and gives them the chance to be on stage in a large scale production like this and tonight as Caractacus Potts’ two children, Jeremy and Jemima, Louis Wilkins and Isabella Manning both gave very strong performances. Every story like this seems to need a kind, but rather eccentric grandfather and Liam Fox made this role believable as Grandpa Potts.
The big star of this show is of course the car itself, and getting a full sized Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to drive, float and fly on-stage is an impressive feat of stage engineering itself and provided more than a few spectacular moments for this audience.
The problem is though, once you have seen the car and sung the song, is there much else left here, as it does not look like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a children’s story has resonated down through the years to new generations of children and sadly the whole story and plot seems to belong to a bygone era of children’s literature and films, and this stage production, despite everyone’s best efforts, simply reinforces that as it just cannot escape its original source material.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
On paper, this show has everything including original music and lyrics by Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman, some of the top costume designers, choreographers, light and sound engineers, set designers and producers in the theatre business involved in this production, plus a very experienced cast. What could possibly go wrong then? An awful lot is the answer to that question, and to be fair it has more to do with the source material than any of the creative and technical people involved here.
On the plus side, there is no faulting anyone’s performance here and Adam Garcia is a very good Caractacus Potts and takes every opportunity given here to put in some very good song and dance routines as well as being believable when the dramatic needs arise for his character. Likewise, Ellie Nunn as the sugary sweet, too good to be true Truly Scrumptious does a good job with this very lightweight role.
At its heart though, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the stage show (as per the film) is essentially an old fashioned song and dance production, and a very specific one with much of its style derived from Edwardian musical theatre, and a very English one at that. This is so often pure vaudeville that often threatens to step over that line into pantomime. Here the heroes are very good and the villains, the Vulgarian Baron and Baroness, performed by Hadrian Delacey and Bibi Jay tonight, have plenty of scope to have a lot of fun with at time some over the top performances that this audience loved.
The two Vulgarian spies, Boris (Adam Stafford) and Goran (Michael Joseph) are pure stereotypes that are dressed and sound like cartoon characters created by Hanna Barbera, and to be fair to them both they do a very good job in their respective roles and there is just enough innuendo in their lines to appeal to the older members of the audience too.
Between the Baron, Baroness and the two spies, we have one of the big problems of this show – have we really not by this time moved past funny foreign accents actually being funny anymore?
The Childcatcher is one character that is well remembered from the original book and film, and Elaine C Smith has that role in this production, but despite her best efforts this child catcher is just not scary enough. Young children should be hiding behind their seats when this character appears, not cheering her on (well maybe that was some of the adults in the audience).
A production like this is, however, one of the few that gives a starring role to young performers and gives them the chance to be on stage in a large scale production like this and tonight as Caractacus Potts’ two children, Jeremy and Jemima, Louis Wilkins and Isabella Manning both gave very strong performances. Every story like this seems to need a kind, but rather eccentric grandfather and Liam Fox made this role believable as Grandpa Potts.
The big star of this show is of course the car itself, and getting a full sized Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to drive, float and fly on-stage is an impressive feat of stage engineering itself and provided more than a few spectacular moments for this audience.
The problem is though, once you have seen the car and sung the song, is there much else left here, as it does not look like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as a children’s story has resonated down through the years to new generations of children and sadly the whole story and plot seems to belong to a bygone era of children’s literature and films, and this stage production, despite everyone’s best efforts, simply reinforces that as it just cannot escape its original source material.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com