PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Silliness on all cylinders
"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is a nonsensically entertaining trip.
April 9, 2009
By Wendy Rosenfield


Between my childhood, my husband's and my children's, we may have collectively seen the 1968 film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (based on Ian Fleming's book), whose national tour is currently parked at the Academy of Music, at least 100 times. And it's a telling detail that none of us can really articulate what went on in that film - something about a magic car, whistling lollipops, and, I don't know, maybe the Kaiser? - with its dark-cornered absurdism and plain old weirdness courtesy of Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes. Nonetheless, we each owned and listened to the soundtrack until we knew it by heart.

The producers of Chitty's tour surely hope that sort of blind nostalgia will summon audiences wistful for a look at the old girl's flying, swimming, politeness-fueled chassis (she only moves if you first say please). And in this vein, the show's British producers hired the film's songwriters, brothers Richard and Robert Sherman, to round out its musical numbers, and brought Jeremy Sams on board to make something coherent out of its book. This production's script was adapted further by its director, Ray Roderick.

So now, I can tell you what happens in Chitty, not that it makes any more sense. Daddy Caractacus Potts is still a widowed inventor and father of two; candy factory heiress Truly Scrumptious comes to love them all; an evil baron and baroness still want to steal Chitty; the demonic Childcatcher still steals Potts' kids; and daddy and Truly still dress up like mechanical dolls to save both the kids and grandfather Potts. Except thankfully, none of this occurs during an extended fantasy sequence. Straightforward, right? No?

Well, no matter. Steve Wilson's Caractacus and Kelly McCormick's Truly bring a winning, wide-eyed good cheer to their roles, even if McCormick is the superior singer. And Dirk Lumbard's and Scott Cote's Vulgarian spies Boris and Goran (long story) turn completely superfluous characters into a vaudevillian treat.

But individuals are less important in Chitty than the cumulative eye-popping, candy-colored excesses surrounding them. JoAnn M. Hunter's limber choreography works best in big numbers like "Toot Sweets" and "Me Ol' Bamboo," though the Baron (George Dvorsky) and Baroness' (Elizabeth Ward Land) "Chu-Chi Face" is a bright spot, even if Anthony Ward's gloriously decadent costumes here threaten to expose more than the Baroness' intentions.

Ward and Robert Bissinger also designed Chitty's delightful blinking, bright, often contraption-filled sets. And there is such an assortment of kids (among them, the winsome Jeremy Lipton and Camille Mancuso as Jeremy and Jemima Potts), dogs and dancers onstage that by the time the car finally sprouts wings and lurches its way heavenward, it is less show-stopper than the natural conclusion for such a ridiculous and, to be honest, ridiculously hummable production.


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