Adelaide Festival Theatre. 1 May 2013
The stage erupts in a glory of stars and there she goes; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang takes to the sky, pitching upwards like a magical funfair ride.
It is a feat of wondrous mechanical expertise and if there is to be had a further coup with the classic racing car, blow me down if, by the time she takes a bow with the rest of the cast, she hasn't achieved a loveable character - toot sweet in her own right.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, presented by Tim Lawson, and the Adelaide Festival Centre, and directed by the distinguished Roger Hodgman, is everything one could possibly want of a family blockbuster.
James Bond author Ian Fleming contrived the narrative, inspired by a real 1920s English racing car which, developed with an aero engine, won many races but eventually was left abandoned and used for scrap.
The musical starts with two children playing on the wreck and hurtles off into merry fantasy as their colourful inventor father, widower Caractacus Potts, restores the car to unprecedented glory funded by the invention of a whistling lolly and the support of a beautiful woman. Foreign spies plotting to seize the car are the blundering buffoons of the play; foreign royals are comic villains and the evil Child Catcher of their suppressed country the fairy tale figure of darkest fear. The children he has already captured live beneath the city like Dickensian urchins. Love grows, lollies rule, there are terrible threats at sea and an oppressed toymaker comes to the rescue.
The show is two and a half hours long (with interval) and carries the traditional blend of love songs, comic songs, heroic songs and jolly theme songs. There's even a lullaby which works, perhaps too well, on some of the young audience members.
The musical's well-wrought ingredients have kept it popular as a Dick Van Dyke movie and as a regularly revived stage show. It is a fantasy adventure story with equal appeal to boys and girls - and their parents.
The staging, the sound, the lighting and the costumes of this ripper good revival all earn full marks. It is slick and professional. It is big, big, big. The mass of children along with the well-honed song and dance chorus have the stage swarming with life and action. There are big dance numbers, wild and wonderful large-scale machine inventions and smoke and explosion effects, not to mention a beautifully resonant orchestra conducted by Peter Casey and a creme-de-la-creme cast of Australian talent.
David Hobson is a joy as Caractacus Potts. The man's glorious tenor voice dominates in perfect measure to lay claim to his role as father and hero of the piece. His stage presence is as warm as his physicality is lithe and light-footed.
Of course Rachael Beck is perfectly delicious as Truly Scrumptious and the Adelaide children of the first night, Finnegan Green and Piper Horner, sing and dance as if born to it and are clearly young stars on the rise.
Big moments and big numbers enable a wealth of star turns through the show. Sparks of vivid villainy fly from Tyler Coppin as the wicked Child Catcher all pointy nose and stiletto toes. It's a lovely performance.
Peter Carroll as funny old Grandpa Potts is endearingly quaint while George Kapiniaris with Todd Goddard do not disappoint in their bumbling silliness. Tony Farrell, meanwhile, is just plain nice as the kindly toymaker.
Alan Brough and Jennifer Vuletic are the antagonistic pleasures of the show, paired as the lovey-dovey Baron and Baroness Bomburst of Vulgaria, rich, selfish, self-obsessed, mean and very funny. Vuletic, particularly, gives an all-stops-out performance.
It's all there. That fantastical car's show is on the road. Hop into a seat and thrill to a dazzling theatrical journey with her.
Samela Harris
When: 28 Apr to 26 May
Where: Adelaide Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
