CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG
The
Review by Emma Shane
© March 2004
Sixteen years after (that famous flop) Ziegfeld,
Louise Gold roars back into The London Palladium in a hit show’s
cast change. Not having seen any of the previous casts, means I can’t compare
the new cast to their predecessors, but from what I’ve seen, we seem to be on
to a winner in this extraordinary concoction of a show. Although ostensibly a
‘children’s musical’, it’s really a family show, and like many of the best
family shows there are plenty of jokes for grown-ups too. There is also a lot
in it for musical-theatre-buffs, since in this production at least, there seems
to be a lot of bits and pieces (including characters) which could have come
almost straight out of other shows. I spotted elements possibly from: Allo Allo,
Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam, Cats,
Les Misberables, Morecambe And
Wise, My Fair Lady, and Oliver, as well as Mary
Poppins or was it Charlie And The
Chocolate Factory, Cabaret or possibly The
Producers, not to mention the odd Savoy Opera, perhaps The
Mikado or The Gondoliers. But somehow this peculiar
combination seems to work.
As the original Chitty was a racing car, the show opens with the
ensemble on stage, where-else but at the race-track. Amongst the ensemble,
almost blending in, are The Vulgarian entourage,
including two of our principals, The Baron and Baroness, who of course never
quite blend in, and it is they, with their entourage, who lead the company in
the Opening. Tall as any of the men (five foot nine plus
stilettos) Louise Gold is distinctive, but excellent, and I must single
her out for good diction. Too often it’s her weakness, but tonight it’s just
fine; well done. In this scene at least she spoke with something like what
seems to be most of the cast’s standard idea of a Vulgarian
accent too (well actually it sounded uncannily like Nazi Private Elsa Bergsten
in Allo Allo).
I also noticed her rolling and flexing her broad shoulders distinctively.
Meanwhile,
Two children,
Jeremy and Jemima Potts, portrayed tonight by Daniel Bartlett and Isabel
Wroe Wright, are playing on the old racing car in
a scrap yard, the owner, Coggins, played well enough
by Ray C Davis has to sell it, for forty shillings. Enter a woman with a
motorcycle and sidecar, looking a bit like a companion out of Dr Who.
Such is Scarlett Strallen’s
stage presonce, we immediately know this must be Truly Scrumptious. She
borrows a spanner, provoking a few comments from Coggins
about women fixing things, to his surprise she does fix her bike, and gives the
children a lift home. In front of the drapes two Vulgarian
Spies Boris and Goran, played by Richard Long
and Christopher Ryan, reveal themselves, at last they’ve found the
whereabouts of that car, and all they have to do is get forty shillings in
English money to buy it.
At The windmill, Caractacus Potts, the inventor is fiddling with his
inventions; Truly turns up with the children. Scarlett dominates the scene, although Gary Wilmot
acts Caractacus with a convincing
likeability. He shows off his sweet making machine, but it accidentally
produces a stick with holes in it. Truly leaves him to it. Caractacus
and the children get their meal ready, with the aid of a spinning table, and a
‘food machine’, You Too, a fine piece of fun, well performed by
all, especially Isabel Wroe Wright as Jemima.
Grandpa, played by Tony Adams, joins them for the meal and
immediately establishes his character: ex-army and forever telling tales about
how he shot and elephant in his pyjamas etc etc. The
children and Caractacus climb the stairs to bed,
while Grandpa finds the sweet stick with holes, and realises it could play a
tune, at last his son may have actually invented something that works, Them
Three.
Caractacus
and the children pay a visit to Lord Scrumptious’s
sweet factory, to try and sell him the invention. For the adults this scene is
a great one for both bureaucratic and sales pitch jokes. Phillips, the
secretary or whatever, played by
In front of the drapes,
having got the money, Boris and Goran realise they
need to Act English if they are to succeed in buying the car,
even Coggins wouldn’t sell it to a Vulgarian (as they nobbled it).
Lyrically this is a funny number, especially if you happen to like P G Wodehouse, or boarding school stories of the Daisy
Pulls It Off era. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it was due to the
sound balance, or Richard Long and Christopher Ryan’s diction,
but I had difficulty actually hearing a number of the lyrics. Given their
difference in height to each other, their double act seems to be a sort of
take-off of Morecambe And Wise in places, this will probably work
better as the run goes on, one hopes.
Back at the
windmill, Caractacus sings the children to sleep with
At the Windmill,
Grandpa is doing his best to take care of the children,
Caractacus is too busy tinkering with a machine down
in his basement laboratory. The cleaning machine has broken down, so they have
to do the housework themselves, Posh, this is an amusing little
number, for Tony Adams, Isabel Wroe Wright
and Daniel Bartlett. Then it’s time for bed,
The food machine
isn’t working properly either, but the next morning, who should turn up at the
windmill, in time for breakfast, but Truly Scrumptious, with a basket of food. Caractacus finally emerges, with his surprise. Up through
the stage rises the car he’s been working on. “It was a racing car, now it’s
a sort of family car”. He tries to start her up, Grandpa gets covered in
oil; Presently the children discover you have to say “please” to the
car, then it will work. On the third attempt, this time with the magic word “please”
(I particularly noticed Isabel here) it starts. Soon the engine is ticking
over, talking. It’s saying its name Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang. Quite a few of the audience started
trying to clap along with the famous title song, but soon quieten down in
amazement, while the car turns around on a turntable. Grandpa decides to “go
off to
However, there’s
trouble looming, the picnic party have been caught by the incoming tide. The
children ask Chitty to please save them. Suddenly to nearly everyone’s
surprise, Chitty sprouts a hover cushion beneath itself and floats on the
water. The only problem is a Vulgarian ship on the
prowl (doors at the back of the stage fold to become the large ship’s stern),
in pursuit of Chitty, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Nautical Reprise). But Chitty isn’t a magic
car for nothing, and eventually outruns the ship.
Over in Vulgaria, we finally get the Baron and Baroness Bombust in council. This time, as she isn’t wearing a hat,
we can see that Louise’s wonderful chestnut curls are hidden under a greyish
light purple wig, which I thought was rather a shame (on the show’s publicity
photos she doesn’t wear the wig). I can’t really remember whether Louise
Gold was using a customary Vulgarian accent at
this point, I think she was, though I’m not certain. I was just rather glad to
see her on stage again. She doesn’t exactly get much to do in Act 1.
There is also a problem. Not only does the car float it also has... The
Baron almost can’t bring himself to tell the Baroness what’s in it. He has to
do it as a charade. This is one of Christopher Biggins’s best moments in the show. Louise
Gold does a pretty good job acting out trying to guess, as well. First
syllable is Chill. The second rhymes “en”. “Chilpen”,
“Chillhen”, it’s “Children”. As soon as she says
“the C word” the Baroness has a little screaming fit, and almost faints
into the arms of one of the entourage. This is very clearly staged, one might
almost say symbolised; since the courtier merely enfolds his arms around her,
she can hardly be said to sink back. Mind you, she is tottering in high heels
all the while, so perhaps it’s best to play a little safe in the fainting
department. (And take no chances of that courtier repeating Gavin Lee’s
mistake in Du Barry Was A Lady). The Childcatcher
is to be sent for, at which point the stage lights go out, and some of the cast
(I think the Baroness included) were complaining of “another power cut”
- a line which some of us in the audience found funny. How often do we read in
the newspapers of foreign countries in
The Vulgarians arrange that if they can’t catch the car, they
might at least kidnap its owner, the inventor Caractacus
Potts. Unfortunately, in a case of mistaken identity, the Captain, nicely
played by David Henry, kidnaps Grandpa (his first name is also Caratacus). Boris and Goran
realising what has gone wrong, and what the mistake will mean for them, set off
in hot pursuit back to Vulgaria. In the middle of all
of this, Chitty and occupants arrive home, and as soon as Caractacus
realises what has happened, they set off in pursuit too. Part of this chase
scene, in front of the drapes, sees everything shrunk, first Grandpa’s
cubby-hole (which has been hooked up to an airship), and then a model car
(Chitty of course) goes whizzing across (complete with toy figures of the four
occupants), and finally two younger actors rush across as smaller editions of
Boris and Goran (the latter is probably one of the
children in the production). A moment later the full-size Boris and Goran dash on, and then its back to the full-size Chitty.
They are heading to
Act 1 had taken place mostly in
The Baronial car is
brought on, and several inventors, played by: Jaymz
Denning, Ray C Davis, Cliff Brayshaw,
Robert Traynor, Ben Stock and Nigel Garton. The Baron tells Grandpa he wants the car to
float, and changes it to fly, as news of a flying car crossing the boarder
arrives. If he fails he will be turned into a sausage. The Baroness meanwhile
is standing near the back following the action with her eyes (as only Louise
Gold would), actually her facial expressions
reminded me of Katisha in the film Topsy Turvy (the
bits where she’s suppose to be expressionless). The Baron, Baroness and
entourage depart, with the Baroness’s sweet parting shot “And watch your
language”. I couldn’t help laughing over that, not least because of the
sweet way Louise delivered the line. However good a line is in a script, it is
only as good as the actor delivering it, and when it comes to delivering witty
lines, wittily, Louise Gold is one of the best, she has such great comic
timing. Grandpa and the inventors attempt to get to work, The Roses Of
Success, which might well be a subtle dig at various dictatorships
efforts at ruling their scientists, so in a sense it could be a piece of
political satire. However, all they manage to do is make the Baronial Car not
go at all, when the Baron returns and wants to use it to travel to the other
side of town, where a flying car has apparently landed. So Grandpa is dragged
off to jail for having failed.
Into the square
come Caractacus, Truly, Jemima and Jeremy. Arguing
about whether they should have hidden Chitty better. At this point an old man,
played by Freddie Lees, rushes on, and urges them to “hide the
children” quickly. Just in time he gets them into his place, when, to a lot
of hissing and booing from the audience, on comes The Childcatcher,
aboard a clockwork horse and carriage. On the back of the carriage is a large
cage. Now it’s Lionel Blair’s big number, Kiddy-widdy-winkies.
This veteran dancer can still move very smoothly, and somehow you can just tell
that the choreography is by the Gillian Lynne, because it reminds one so
much of Cats. It’s quite a thrill to see someone like Lionel
Blair on the legendary London Palladium stage.
The old man is The
Toymaker. Freddie Lees does a fine job with this character, all the more
impressive given that he has to establish his character so quickly. Inside his
workshop he insists the children must be hidden in the cellar,
and Caractacus and Truly behind curtains. The Childcatcher enters, more hissing, and The Toymaker insists
there are no children there, and then he’s summoned to the palace anyway, so
with the words “My nose must have been mistaken” he is apparently gone. Caractacus convinces the Toymaker (who would rather get on
with making The Baron’s birthday present for tomorrow) to help them rescue
Grandpa, by showing them a secret way to the palace. Truly is to stay with the
children. But The Toymaker apparently returns to tell her there’s been a change
of plan, she’s to go with them. But no, it’s The Childcatcher
in disguises, with Truly out of the way, he takes the
children, she realises what has happened, but is only in time to see them
driven away in the cage.
Underground, Truly finds Caractacus and The
Toymaker and tells them what has happened. The Toymaker shows them the sewers,
where the few Vulgarian children they have managed to
hide live. These children look like a scene from Les Miserables,
in the tattered clothing, and shawls, and one small boy, Toby, who is begging
could be out of Oliver. After all although Chitty may be set in
days gone by, the stage version is very recent, coming hot on the heels of the
1980’s era of misery in musical theatre. However, this is post that era, so we
can be jolly again. Caractacus, The Toymaker, and The
Children will work together as a team; Teamwork can save the day.
Truly joins in on the end of this, as the children dance off stage, somehow,
despite being better dressed, she seems to fit in with them very well. Perhaps
partly because Scarlett Strallen
after all started her career as a child-actress very much like many of these
children (her credits in that department include Annie Get Your Gun
in the West End as well as the odd panto as a member
of The Young Set, of course). Caractacus if
left alone on the stage with Toby, whom he serenades with a sorrowful reprise
of
We come to my favourite moments in the entire show, well they are pure Gold.
We have only half a stage (the back half is being used for set building), but
on the half we do have, two screens are brought on. Standing behind the one to
the audiences’ left is Louise Gold and the audiences’ right, Christopher
Biggins. It’s The Baron’s birthday, so clad in a
tied dressing own, he sings happy birthday to himself. Presently the Baroness
emerges, to whish him well, Chu-Chi
Face. This number is hilarious. I’m not too sure what it was doing
lyrically, or musically, but production-wise it was simply terrific. Now at
last Gold really shines. The Baroness’s dressing gown (which is red with
black feathers) is not tied, and indeed at some points in the number she slips
it off altogether, underneath she is clad in scanties
or should that be undies? - Anyway it is basque, stockings, suspenders etc. This is not the kind of
outfit you would normally expect to find an actress in her mid-forties dancing
in on the
Now resplendent in
a red Spanish-type dress, whose skirt is cleverly designed as to be slit in
such a way she is showing off her right leg a lot, an assistant hands her a
pair of maracas, and she launches into The Bombe Samba. She soon
hands the maracas over to The Baron, and it’s comical the way he keeps being
out of time (I presume that’s deliberate). The chorus girls (clad in black
Spanish-type dresses) handle the bulk of the really tricky dancing. But tall
magnificent Louise holds her own, she moves beautifully and very rhythmically,
and it’s just a joy to see her get an opportunity to display some of her
dancing skills. By now the back drapes are up, to reveal a table and large
cake-like concoction on it. It’s a super production number, well danced by the
chorus, but the star of the number is Louise Gold.
What could follow
that? On are brought to boxes, one labelled ‘A Birthday Present For The Baron’ and a second labelled ‘Another Present
For The Baron’. The first is opened to reveal a life-size dancing doll, Doll
On A Music Box. Such is Scarlett
Strallen’s
stage presonce, we immediately realise its Truly in disguise. For once I found my attention wandered so
completely away from Louise Gold, I didn’t have even half an eye on her,
all the focus is on Scarlett. Now that’s quite an
achievement! The second box is opened to reveal, Caractacus,
disguised as another mechanical doll, Truly Scrumptious.
Something’s got to happen. Suddenly the cake bursts open, and the sewer kids stream out, reprising Teamwork. The
Baroness has another fit of screaming hysterics, only this time she’s too busy
trying to escape the sewer-kids to faint. This is a comic high spot of the
show. There is so much happening, in this big silly battle between good and
evil, that its could be quite hard to know where to
look. I found my attention focusing, quite naturally on the sewer kids and The
Baroness, especially, when while trying to escape from the clutches of
sewer-kids, she and them ended up down on the stage fringe (in front of the
orchestra pit). She makes a darting grab at one of the girls, placing her hands
on the girl’s shoulders as though to shake her. (I am sure that in reality
kind-hearted Louise is probably very careful not to use too much force in her
strong powerful hands, but the whole thing looks effective). Elsewhere on the
stage, the inventors have succeeded in getting the Baron stung up with a rope.
A quick bit of
scene changing, finds us down in a dungeon, where Jeremy and Jemima are held, You
Two. “Let’s try once more,” says Jemima, and they sing their Chitty
Prayer. Their prayer is answered, first Caractacus
and Truly enter, looking for the children, but that
dungeon is a dead end. Caractucus asks Truly to marry
him, should they ever get out of this, she says they won’t get out of
it, then who should come along singing a military song but, Grandpa? No
it’s The Childcatcher in disguise again. Suddenly, he
falls to the ground in agony, like he’s been electrocuted, as Chitty flies to
the rescue, with Grandpa aboard. The magic car came bursting into his cell and
now it’s come to rescue the rest of them.
Back above ground
in the palace, the battle is still going on, The Inventors and courtiers manage
to get The Childcatcher into a net, which is then
tied to a rope and he is hauled high up into the roof, shouting his vengeance.
Someone, brings on a document to repeal the law banning children, and asks The
Baron to sign it. Which he does (miming signing his name with a pen in his
right hand). Then it’s the Baroness’s turn. She says
she’d sooner be sick than sign it, and sinks to the ground. She’s lying
on her front when that small sewer kid, Toby, runs up to her and begs her with
the magic word “Please”. “I think I’m going to be sick,” says the
Baroness, finally beaten, rising up on her knees and miming a pen in her left
hand, she makes her mark with a cross. I thought that an interesting touch, and
can’t help wondering whose idea was it to hint at The Baroness being
illiterate?
Now it’s all over.
The Baroness gets up off the floor, two battered looking brown suitcases are
produced, and The Baron and Baroness make their exit to banishment, through the
auditorium, along the, audience way round right aisle. As they do so that
battle-axe of a Baroness is telling her husband off for messing the whole thing
up, and he, clutching his teddy says “Not in front of teddy”. Their job done, Jeremy and Jemima and Grandpa
clamber into the back of Chitty; Truly agrees to marry
Caractacus, and they take their places aboard Chitty.
The car takes to the air as they sing the Finale.
But there’s one
important thing to do after a finale, show your appreciation, it’s the bows.
First the sewer kids, then the ensemble, after that the various principals. Lionel
Blair still got greeted with a lot of hissing and booing when he came to
take his bow. Which was rather unfair, since he actually acted rather well,
perhaps that’s a peril, of acting too well. Finally most of the company line up
to sing a reprise of the title song. I notice that by this time Louise Gold
is grinning broadly, very much like Rosina/Katisha in
The Mikado finale scene in the film Topsy
Turvy. This is perhaps the right time to
mention, especially for the benefit of those audience members who haven’t seen
them before, that our three villains are actors, and the villains are only
characters. I am sure that off-stage they are probably not in the least bit
like those characters. So its a testimony to their
skill as actors that the succeed in playing them convincingly.
All in all a pretty spectacular show. Yes it does have a
pantomime-like quality to it, and many of the cast have experience in panto, ranging from veteran performers, to child-actors
getting their first job (those with pantomime experience include: Tony Adams,
Scarlett Strallen,
Christopher Biggins, Louise Gold, Lionel
Blair, Emma Dodd, Catie Marie Entwhistle, Ross Fountain, Aaron Francis,
Chadd Garvie,
Tim Harwood,
The denouement of a
fight scene was really made by the children’s ensemble (at this particular performance
they were: Jordan Bethell, Emily Deamer, Jenny Driver, Roscoe
Fenton, Georgia Figgis, Peter Humphreys,
Hannah Kenneally-Muir, Esther Langley, Jessica
Morris, Thomas Morrison, Jamie O’Sullivan, Myles
Senior-Campbell, Zoe Shand, Ryan Wright). And, under the direction of Robert
Scott the orchestra did a pretty good job in spite of the hectic on stage
activity above it. As the two spies Richard Long and Christopher Ryan
played their parts well enough, given that good double-acts are hard to do, and
I wasn’t too keen on their roles, but they are a necessary part of the plot. Lionel
Blair made a great job of The Childcatcher, and
proved that he can still act and dance very well (his resume makes a point of
mentioning that he has been happily married for 36 years, has 3 children and
one grandchild). Of the main male characters, Tony Adams is worth
mentioning for his characterisation and for having quite good stage presence, he seemed to have the knack for timing the
delivery of his lines. As Jeremy and Jemima, Daniel Barlett
and Isabel Wroe Wright were generally good,
although Isabel was the more noticeable of those two, that’s a part to
remember. From what I actually noticed
of Christopher Biggins’s
performance as The Baron it seemed to alright, but that said, during most of
his scenes I was paying so much more attention to Louise Gold’s
Baroness, that I didn’t really notice him. Occasionally he stood up to her, but
a lot of the time his co-star dominated him much like her character dominates
his in the plot. As our Leading Man, Gary Wilmot acted his part well, he
sang nicely, and was entirely satisfactory except for one thing. He didn’t
really seem to quite have the sort of stage presonce
one would expect from a lead, Scarlett Strallen outshone him. And directors Adrian Noble
and Jo Davies did the sensible thing and let that happen. Overall this
didn’t actually matter, in a way it actually contributed to his character, a
nice guy, but someone who isn’t too good at actually achieving things, and he
played his part well. It really wasn’t a problem. The car is the star of the
show anyway. As a piece of theatrical magic Chitty itself is
magnificent, especially when it takes to the air in the flying scenes.
It’s well worth watching. I don’t usually like too much gimmicky mechanics in
musicals, preferring strong acting performances to fancy sets, but I was
impressed by this one, and very pleased to have seen it. I felt that the two
strongest acting performances came from two actresses who were both trained
(many years apart) at Arts Educational, namely Scarlett
Strallen and Louise Gold. Both have an
abundance of stage presonce. Now it is my considered
opinion that if you have a performer with a lot of stage presonce,
rather than try to suppress their natural tendencies (as Adrian Noble
did when he directed Louise Gold in The Cherry Orchard),
the best thing to do is cast them with leading actors whose own performance is
strong enough to stand up to theirs, and, give them a role they can really get
their teeth into. The latter is exactly what Scarlett
Strallen gets here. It’s the first time Scarlett has had a proper opportunity like this on the
professional grown-up stage (a few years ago she lead an amateur cast of
Oklahoma! to great effect), until now her West End credits have been as
a chorus, bit-part player and understudy, and while everyone has to start
somewhere, its a waste of her talents and skills. Yes her acting style is
perfectly naturally a bit like Bonnie Langford’s, but with a better
singing voice. However, that’s the way she is, and the similarity is not
necessarily a bad thing. Besides it’s only a similarity, Scarlett
is very much her own person as a performer. Given the right roles, and wise
casting, she could be something. Now, someone who too often hasn’t been given
enough
Yes Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a
spectacular show, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and it’s
something to have The London Palladium echo to such a hit spectacle, and
I’m glad to have seen it. But I am especially glad to have seen Scarlett Strallen
and Louise Gold in it.
__________________________________________________
Webmaster's footnote: The webmaster would
like to thank Miss H K-M for identifying precisely which group of children were
appearing as the Vulgarian Children at the particular
performance this review covered.
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