Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

The most expensive prop in the history of British theatre is the star of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a delightful musical that opened at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal on Tuesday.

The car, which cost £750,000, is converted from a scrapyard wreck into a sparkling fantasmagorical machine that can do just about everything — and actually appears to fly, to the applause of a packed audience.

It is just one of the stunning effects which, together with some very lavish and eye-catching costumes, make the musical a real treat.

The production, based on the 1968 children’s film classic, has a cast of 30 actors and dancers, 46 children, who have been recruited locally, and 11 dogs.

Darren Bennett leads the cast as doting widower and crackpot inventor Caractacus Potts who is struggling to bring up his two very loveable children, Jeremy and Jemima, whose demanding role is shared by eight children.

Pretty Katie Ray is lovely as the sweet but sometime feisty Truly Scrumptious who captures the hearts of both Potts and his children.

Personal favourites have to be the hapless spies Boris (Richard Ashton) and Goran (Nigel Garton) who bring some great slap-stick comedy into the proceedings.

John Griffiths is ideal as the children’s eccentric Grandpa Potts, who lives in a world of his own.

He is kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity and taken to Vulgaria, which is ruled over by child-hating Baroness Bomburst, played by a wonderful Kim Ismay and equally good Edward Peel as Baron Bomburst.

Good too is the famously evil child catcher Dean Maynard whose sheer appearance is enough to scare both young and old.

The show is packed with some great songs and dance routines.

It is one of those productions, full of the feel-good factor, which you can simply sit back and enjoy.

The musical, which broke box office records at the London Palladium and is now on a national tour, will be stopping at Nottingham until February 20.

Catch it if you can — LAM.