CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG.
London
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG
by Ian Fleming, adapted by Jeremy Sams Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman
London Palladium
Mon-Sat 7.30 Mats Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval
TICKETS 020 7494 5572
Review Timothy Ramsden 25 April 2002
Plotwise, the steering may be haywire, but the spectacle fires on all cylinders.
Everything's done well in this lavish musical. Michael Ball sings and dances beautifully. Nichola McAuliffe is a comic panto villainess, who'd only have to change the focus of her nausea from kids to dalmatians to be renamed Cruella. And the dogs are immaculate.
The car is a sleek star – even the announcement of a technical hitch before it takes flight has such pre-recorded calm you might suspect they'd inserted it just to heighten audience nerves. And Brian Blessed is a superb Brian Blessed. Though cven he, the ideal Vulgarian chief, pales beside McAuliffe's queen in the ultimate villainy stakes. The female of the species, and all that as Anton Rodgers' affectionate old Colonist might put it. Rodgers' antediluvian jokes and repeated visits to the garden to relieve himself in 'India' – khaki in the khazi – lead to the show's lesser publicised effect, a flying lavatory complete with occupant.
So far the show's been busy ensuring the plot's not allowed to get in the way of spectacle or the tum-ti-ti songs varied by the occasional soulful ballad. These softer numbers are built round inventor Caractacus Potts and his motherless (cue entry to his life of glamorous Emma Williams) children. They're so perfect it's almost enough to make anyone over 15 and not yet grandparents welcome Richard O'Brien's masked Childcatcher.
By the time he takes centre stage the musical's effectively dissolved into a divertissement, with panto-hissing, mad scientists and a Babes in the Wood meets the junior branch of Les Miserables setting for song, dance and comic heroics.
The staging by Noble and Lynne is supremely managed, with Ward's designs and Henderson's lighting creating a series of magical moments. The famously huge budget has been well-spent.
And then there's the car. From rusting heap it's re-born from the stage depths, a resplendent mechanical phoenix, skimming along just above the ground for a scene or two. And that's all it does? Then it takes miraculous flight (they clearly have the technology and the means of concealing it). These end-of-act aerial spins are big-time, big-money impressive. You just have to be there.
Coggins/Inventor/Ensemble: Ray C. Davis
Jeremy Potts: George Gillies/Harry Smith/Luke Newberry
Jemima Potts: Carrie Fletcher/Lauren Morgan/Kimberley Fletcher
Commentator: Graham Hoadly
Truly Scrumptious: Emma Williams
Boris: David Ross
Goran: Emil Wolk
Grandpa Potts: Anton Rodgers
Caractacus Potts: Michael Ball
Phillips: Graham Hoadly
Lord Scrumptious: David Henry
Sid: Matthew Rixon
Violet/Ensemble: Liza Pulman
Turkey Farmer/Inventor/Ensemble: Steve Elias
Baron Bomburst: Brian Blessed
Baroness Bomburst: Nichola McAuliffe
Childcatcher: Richard O'Brien
Inventors/Ensemble: Peter Bishop, Nicholas Johnson, Bret Jones, Matthew Rixon
Toymaker: Edward Petherbridge
Ensemble: Helen Baker, Julie Barnes, Darren Carnall, Stuart Chaffer, Ben Clare, Lisa Joanne Cook, Phyllida Crowley-Smith, Darren J. Fawthrop, Nia Fisher, Ben Garner, Jocelyn Hawkyard, Emma Hennigan, Emma Kerslake, Robert Kramer, David Lee, Rory Locke, Gary Milner, Tommi Sliiden, Scarlett Strallen, Lyndsey Wise
Swings: Leo Bidwell, Philip Comley, Ross Dawes, Maria Holley, Remy Martyn, Claire Morland
Children: Pax Baldwin, Eliza Bennett, Alex Bird, Albey Brooks, Thomas Brownlowe, Jade Chaston, Ricki Cuttell, Jack Dobby, Danielle Downey, Gregory Foreman, Emily Keston, Laura Jane Keston, Jack Liman, Marianna Neofitou, Charlotte Finlay Tribe, Zizi Van Strallen, Kadisha West/Jamie Blackley, Charlotte Campbell, Jimmy Chamberlaine, Dean Clish, Louis Constantine, Charlie Couch, Kane Davis, Darcy Gregory, Natalie McQueen, Liam O' Byrne, Darcy Perry, Thomas Runeckles, Lamorna Short, Tamara Short, Sophie Strong, Lauren Stroud, Skye Tupholme/Natalie Baker, Anabel Barnston, Heather Basten, Jeanna Leah Cachero, Daniel Ellis, Amelia Gilchrist, Dayle Hodge, Ashley Horne, Faye Houliston, Billy Mahoney, Sam Morris, Anna R. O'Sullivan, Stephanie Pierre, Graham Stothard, Daniel Woodger
Director: Adrian Noble
Designer: Anthony Ward
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Sound: Andrew Bruce
Musical Staging/Choreography: Gillian Lynne
Orchestrations/Dance Arrangements: Chris Walker
Musical Director: Robert Scott
Fight director: Terry King
2002-04-26 09:35:07