Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in Singapore: Rehearsals in Southampton

Rehearsals in Southampton

Me, Shannon, Sam and Ella rehearsing "Toot Sweets" in Southampton.

From left, Ben, Jessica, Fraser, Katie, me, Shannon, Sam.

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http://chasityge.livejournal.com; November 25, 2010 at 7:18 PM

The cast in my career so far

Anne - Chaperone for Chitty in Singapore
Catie - Childrens Director Chitty
Cordelia - Childrens Director Waiting for Godot
Craig McLachlan - Caractacus Potts and my "Dad" in Chitty, Southampton
David Steadman - Musical Director Scrooge
Edward - Director for Chitty
Ethan - Tiny Tim Too!
Fran - Tutor and chaperone for Chitty
Fraser - Jeremy in Southampton, cover for Singapore
Harriet - Jemima Southampton and Singapore
Harrison - Jeremy in Southampton and Singapore
Jo Hawes - Children's administrator - in charge of casting for most West End shows
Joe Crowley - Childrens Director on An Inspector Calls
Julia Howson - My stagecoach principal, singing teacher and inspiration
Katie Reynolds - My Jemima!
Kevin Kennedy - Caractacus Potts in Singapore
Kimberley - Understudy for Truly Scrumptious
Marissa - Truly Scrumptious in Chitty
Maya Sprigg - Oxford Stagecoach Principal and central in all my first parts.
Megan - Child in An Inspector Calls and Jane Banks in Mary Poppins and for Westenders. Fellow one-armed bandit.
Mrs Forest - My headmistress at Chandlings
Niamh - Cover Southampton and Jemima Singapore
Pat - Head chaperone for Chitty
Phil - Childrens Musical Director for Chitty
Sam - Jeremy Southampton and Singapore. Never stops dancing
Sasha - My little sister and biggest fan. Always wants to sit in the front row.
Senaria - Wardrobe Waiting for Godot and Chitty. Fellow Cirque de Celebrite Fan!
Shannon - Jemima in Southampton

The Review; Singapore

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the musical stays true to the film's script (which is a radical departure from the book), telling the story of a race-winning car rescued from an old junkyard after Jeremy (Adam Hargreaves) and Jemima (Katie Reynolds), the young children of inventor Potts (Kevin Kennedy) stumble upon it.(A 1.5-tonne car costing RM3 million was used for the musical and it holds the Guinness World Record for being the most expensive prop in the history of British theatre.)

The children ask Potts to buy the car; along the way, they bump into confectionery heiress Truly Scrumptious (Marissa Dunlop), who gets into an argument with Potts.Potts is a widower who devotes his life to creating speedy solutions for household chores. He lives with his children and father, retired general Caractacus Potts Sr. (Tony Adams) in a windmill in the English countryside.

Jeremy and Jemima long for their father to remarry and they see just the Miss Right for him in the feisty Truly.To raise funds to buy the car, Potts invents "toot sweets", which can be used as wind instruments. He impresses Truly, but she fails to sell the idea to her businessman father Lord Scrumptious.

Potts subsequently gets his money by selling a chicken-plucking machine, and goes on to refurbish the car. He names it Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for the sounds it makes while getting started.The Potts family soon learns that the car has a life of its own, protects them from danger and can fly, with special gliders and a parachute.The evil Baron Bomburst (David Henry) and his child-hating wife Baroness Bomburst (Louise Plowright) from the kingdom of Vulgaria come in hot pursuit of the magical car.They kidnap Potts Sr. and force Potts, his children, Truly and the magical car to visit their oppressive fiefdom.

Jeremy and Jemima are nabbed by the eerie Child-Catcher (Richard O'Brien), the bogeyman of Vulgaria at the service of the Baron who has jailed all of the country's children in the sewers.Led by Potts and Truly, and aided by the magical Chitty, the adults and children of Vulgaria join hands to teach the baddies a lesson.

While the musical introduces the 1968 movie to a whole new audience, and brings to life its catchy songs such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, You Two, Toot Sweets, Hushabye Mountain, Truly Scrumptious and The Roses Of Success, none of the stage actors have been able to reproduce the "oomph" of Van Dyke and his co-stars.

Nevertheless, all the leading actors — Kennedy, Dunlop, Hargreaves, Reynolds, Adams, Henry and Plowright — do justice to their respective roles.

The musical may be wholesome family fare and a "truly scrumptious" ride to sit back for, but nothing beats the movie from which it is derived.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in Singapore

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Rehearsals in Southampton

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Newspaper cuttings

The cast in my career so far

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The Review; Singapore

How it all started.