Chitty Chitty Bang Bang set to soar

SussexWorld

Caractacus Potts and James Bond are virtually the same character, laughs Adam Garcia who brings Caractacus to life on a new tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

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00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, and I'm

00:06 fabulous to speak to Martin Garcia, who is our Caractacus Pods, as Chitty Chitty Bang

00:11 Bang very, very excitingly goes on tour with all sorts of venues and stores, Sir Hampton,

00:17 Crawley and Eastbourne for us. And just saying, it always surprises me to remember it was

00:22 by Ian Fleming, and you made the case very persuasively, that there's a huge crossover

00:29 between James Bond and Caractacus Pods.

00:32 They're virtually the same.

00:34 Go on, justify that.

00:36 I will justify that. Well, it was obviously written by Ian Fleming, because his son couldn't

00:45 read the Bond novels, because it's, you know, very adult. And so he sort of decided to try

00:53 and write the craft these sort of short stories. But it is about a man who's a rebel, a little

01:00 bit of an outsider, slightly lonesome, who has all these fantastic gadgets, you know.

01:12 And of course, he has a car, a car that does things, a car that saves the day, and they

01:17 go somewhere and they find people in peril, and they go and rescue everyone. So it's somewhat,

01:25 and apparently, though, in the books, and I think I need to remember this correctly,

01:30 he's also an ex commander.

01:32 Right.

01:33 Right.

01:34 And not only just an inventor, but someone...

01:36 It's all falling into place now. And do you have this in the back of your mind, as you

01:39 play the part?

01:40 No, luckily, no, I don't think I could play, if I started playing him as a father...

01:48 The name is Potts, Karaktikas Potts.

01:50 Potts, Karaktikas Potts. But there is something, you know, when he does go to Bulgaria to save

01:58 and rescue his father, there is something very decisive in his actions, where he's,

02:04 because he's not dithering, he's sort of not... And there's sort of the, when I first started

02:09 reading it, there was that tendency to think, well, he's a bit hopeless, but he's not. He's

02:12 actually very sort of single-minded. And, you know, if he wants to make a food-making

02:18 machine, he's like, "Well, I'm just going to make a food-making machine." And he makes

02:21 it when he finds the car, and he's like, "It is broken." So he just fixes it. So he's quite

02:27 determined. He's a bit of a salesman as well, which is what I like about him. Whenever he

02:35 tries to sell one of his inventions, there's a slight embellishment of its quality, until

02:44 it may go wrong. And then he goes, you know, it is in the experimental stage. But he's

02:50 trying as hard as he can to raise his family.

02:53 He's a very appealing, likeable character, isn't he? But how can you explain why this

02:57 story has had such a hold for generations now? Why? It's so much embedded in our minds,

03:03 isn't it? And not just in our country. You're saying in Australia?

03:07 No, in Australia as well. Yeah, absolutely. I think the main part... Not only are the

03:15 songs great, and obviously Dick Van Dyke did an incredible job as Cracticus Potts. He's

03:21 entirely brilliant. And one of my favourite performers ever.

03:26 Do you have to put him from your mind?

03:30 I definitely do. One, because he had an American accent in the film. I'm like, well, he's not

03:35 American. He's inexplicably American in the film. It's the magic of it, and the idea that

03:44 imagination, when unleashed, when allowed to do what it wants, can lead to very beautiful

03:52 things. And I think it's just... There's something about the movie, the music, and what it says

04:00 about just believing that you can be yourself, you can create your own worlds and create

04:08 your own magic. And so there's something very individual about it. It's about breaking constraints

04:16 on all sorts of levels. And I think that's what appeals to people so much.

04:20 Adam, I think you're whetting appetites fabulously. It's always lovely to speak chitty chitty bang

04:25 bang and lovely to speak to you. Thank you very much indeed.

04:29 Thanks for having me.

04:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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