Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was in the news at the weekend when it was reported Richard M. Sherman, one half of a songwriting partnership with his brother Robert, had died.
His soundtrack for the 1968 film is embedded in the collective consciousness of generations.
The title track makes the sound of the champion racer that for many, is the star of the show in Edinburgh. On one level the story, celebrating its 60th anniversary, is about widowed men carrying on without women. Caractacus Potts played by Adam Garcia was perfect at conveying an affable and good-natured father doing his best in difficult circumstances. His father, the eccentric Grandpa Potts played for former Emmerdale actor Liam Fox, is also without a wife. Despite the losses both men summon something of the joy of just being alive and create a fantastical and cheerful world, often through song for the children, Jeremy and Jemima. Hadrian Delacey and Bibi Jay enjoyed a potent comic chemistry as the Baron and Baroness who decree that all children must be banished from their Kingdom of Vulgaria. The job of catching children is left to the dreaded Child Catcher who was played in the film by Robert Helpmann.
His background as a ballet dancer aided the strange and unsettling movement of the character, the thought of it even now is enough to chill the blood. Elaine C. Smith, dressed in black and through a distorted voice brought a sense of menace when promising the children ice cream and treacle tart and then bundling them into a cage to be taken away.
The timeless story benefits from the original 1964 book written by James Bond creator and novelist Ian Fleming and the co-screen writer and children’s novelist Roald Dahl whose combined talents helped create the quirky British characterisation of characters such as Truly Scrumptious played excellently by Ellie Nunn, the latter a Dahl creation not in the original novel. We are reminded that: “teamwork makes the dream work” and these villainous, dark forces are soon defeated. Undoubtedly it was the most surreal moments that fired up audience enthusiasm and laughter during the show such as when the “fine four-fendered friend” takes flight, its mudguards spread out like wings over a night sky and the sea.
It’s a magical moment that allows us to become completely lost in the fantasy of another world.
