Chitty Chitty Bang Bang tour review – a reliable revival of an ‘old banger’

Director Thom Southerland’s hallmark is staging epic musicals in tight spaces, so it’s easy to see why he’s been appointed to take a fresh look at a show whose central character is a flying car. After all, working out how to retain the wow factor within the technical and financial constraints of a touring production should be right up his street.

The result of his tinkering is mostly successful, and certainly retains the madcap charm of Ian Fleming’s 1964 story, the classic film version and the original West End production. There’s a vibrancy that kicks off with the all-company grand prix opening (following a fulsome overture) and rarely lets up. Although it has to be faced, the story feels increasingly anachronistic, its humour leaning heavily on mitteleuropean accents and sexual innuendo, there is nevertheless enough warmth to keep it just the right side of the line.

The belt-tightened approach does mean it ends up sitting somewhat awkwardly between a stripped-down, rustic reworking, and the need to retain a suitable number of big effects. So we get puppets, model cars and fairground costumes one minute (all neatly rendered by designer Morgan Large), then a full-scale flying motor the next. Large boxes are repurposed in multiple ways, reminiscent of Southerland’s award-winning staging of Titanic, but backcloths are also liberally used. It feels at once innovative and old-fashioned, and it would have been nice if it leaned more heavily into the former.

Another notable change is the recasting of The Childcatcher – a figure who duly terrified my younger self – as female, played here by Charlie Brooks. It’s an enjoyably pantomimic performance, replete with twisty nose trumpet and blonde quiff hairpiece, but undoubtedly lacks the menace more usually associated with the role. Mind you, when a character’s big number is titled “Kiddy Widdy Winkies”, it’s understandable why they’ve toned down the creepiness, and in this regard, the production feels much more aligned with contemporary mores.

In the central role of lovable widower Caractacus Potts, Adam Garcia is as reliable as a finely-tuned racecar, and effortlessly flexes his leading man muscle in numbers including the show-stopping “Me Ol’ Bamboo” (superbly choreographed by Karen Bruce). Ellie Nunn also proves a class act as Truly Scrumptious, the family-friendly Bond girl, and Liam Fox is an enjoyably blustering Grandpa Potts. Vulgarian spies Boris and Goran, my ten-year-old’s favourite characters, are camped up marvellously by Adam Stafford and Michael Joseph, while the Baron and Baroness prove deliciously dark in the hands of Martin Callaghan and Bibi Jay (stepping in for Jenny Gayner at the performance I attended).

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a musical so synonymous with the Sherman Brothers’ foot-tapping title number that it’s in danger of being labelled a one-hit-wonder. And Southerland’s production ultimately proves a crowd-pleaser because it embraces this fact rather than shirking it. I just would have liked to see him take the handbrake off a little more to really test whether this old banger can truly soar.