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Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Palladium

It was 17 months ago that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (the car) first swooped above the heads of delighted audiences at the Palladium, thus ensuring that CCBB (the show) opened to great acclaim.

Now the self-proclaimed "most fantasmagorical stage musical in the history of everything" has undergone its first wholesale cast change, the burning question is this: on a scale of one to truly scrumptious, how does Adrian Noble's production now rate?

Pretty darn scrumptious is the answer, with the new leads - Gary Wilmot as inventor Caractacus Potts, Russ Abbott as his father and Caroline Sheen as the titular Miss S - heading an immaculately drilled ensemble of adults and children that is, even by the West End's bloated standards, breathtaking both for its skill and sheer size.

No one could accuse CCBB of being over-heavy on the plot front, and what little exposition there is in Jeremy Sams' adaptation awkwardly arrives in the sweet packet-rustling few minutes immediately after the overture. Thus key issues, such what exactly is going on in the Nazi Germanymanque state of Vulgaria to require it to employ Wayne Sleep's underwhelming Childcatcher, remain frustratingly unclear. But then Richard and Robert Sherman's gloriously catchy tunes gather momentum and that car starts to fly.

The sheer magnificence of Anthony Ward's design, with its gleaming, soaring, wing-sprouting full-sized automobile and imposing sets of cog-packed machines, lifts both the cast and the audience's hearts. Abbott perfectly balances gruff and tender as the retired soldier who is concerned about his penniless son and his unschooled grandchildren, and he is well matched by Sheen, who is chocolate-box perfect in her sorely under-characterised part. Wilmot's Potts, however, displays a suitable range of inventorly eccentricities without truly banishing memories of Michael Ball's take on this role.

There's no musical number or section of dialogue that wouldn't benefit from a little trimming, even if it is impossible not to revel in the joyous music-hall feel of Me Ol' Bamboo and The Roses of Success, or to resist the urge to tap toes in the tongue-twisting title number. Enchantment guaranteed for children; adults certainly won't regret coming along for the magic ride.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang