Elaine C Smith on playing the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

As she prepares to take on the role of the Childcatcher in a new touring production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Elaine C Smith tells Joyce McMillan, ‘I think it’s slightly easier as a woman’

As all James Bond fans know, the novelist Ian Fleming – original creator of Britain’s most famous fictional secret agent – was an archetypal mid-20th century motoring man, fond of a car with a few special features. Ejector seats, revolving licence-plates, and machine-guns built into the headlights are among the many that appeared in Bond’s legendary series of Aston Martins; but none of them was quite as special as the car Fleming invented in the children’s story he wrote, in the early 1960s, for his young son Caspar.

That car, after all, was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the vintage wreck saved from the scrapheap by eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts (or Pott, as Fleming called him), and beloved by his twin children Jeremy and Jemima, which – after its restoration – begins to demonstrate strange powers, eventually taking off into full-blown flight.

Following the success of the book, published soon after Fleming’s death in 1964, Ken Hughes’s brilliant 1968 film – with a script co-written by Hughes and Roald Dahl, and songs by the Sherman Brothers – made Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and its joyful upbeat theme tune a family classic around the world.

Elaine C Smith PIC: John Devlin

And it was the sheer joy that Fleming’s story, in all its versions, has brought to children everywhere that made it difficult for Scottish stage and television star Elaine C Smith to resist the chance to play the role of the wicked Childcatcher in the Scottish performances of the latest UK tour of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang stage musical.

“It’s a strange thing, really,” says Smith, from a coffee shop in Woking where the show was playing last week, “to step into a big UK touring show for its Scottish dates only. You know that you’re there as a marketing ploy, which is fine, but there’s also this strange feeling, most of the time, of being in the company but not in the show; and after the last time I did it – playing the horrible orphanage superintendent Miss Hannigan in the Scottish dates of Annie – I said ‘never again’.

“It’s not as though I haven’t done my share of touring over the years. My early career with Wildcat was all touring, to every kind of venue; I also created the part of Cora in the stage play version of Calendar Girls, back in 2009, and did a full UK tour in that, and I’ve even co-produced and co-written my own touring show, the Susan Boyle story I Dreamed I Dream.

“At this time of my life, though, when I’m a granny twice over and really enjoying it, I don’t want to be doing long tours any more, or taking on jobs that involve a lot of stress. When this one came along, though – well, first of all, they offered me the villain role of the Childcatcher, which was interesting in itself; this is the first time the Childcatcher has been played by women, with Charlie Brooks playing the non-Scottish dates, so that intrigued me.

“Then when I mentioned it to people, there was just such a warm and delighted reaction – to the story, and what it means to people – that I was won over. I remembered taking our kids to to see it at the London Palladium 20 years ago, when my old friend Paul O’Grady was playing the Childcatcher, and how thrilled they were; we had the backstage tour, saw how they made the magical car work, and all that.

“And I thought – well, this is a story that people really love, and it’s only four Scottish dates, so how hard can it be? So here I am in Woking, preparing to shadow Charlie Brooks through this afternoon’s show – and of course, I’m absolutely terrified as usual!”

Like the show’s grown-up heroine Truly Scrumptious – played in this production by Ellie Nunn, with Adam Garcia as Caractacus Potts – the Childcatcher is a character invented by Hughes and Dahl for the film, rather than a Fleming original; and fans will recognise a classic Dahl motif in the character’s sinister twist of evil.

“To be honest, I think it’s slightly easier to play that character as a woman, nowadays,” says Smith. “Audiences today are much more aware of the threat of paedophilia and so on; and as a woman you can play it as a pure wicked witch, without some of those overtones. It’s not exactly pantomime, although there are elements of good panto, in that the threat is contained within a very positive storyline; but there is some real drama to it. They’ve even reinstated the Childcatcher’s song for me, a kind of dark Kurt Weill-type number which is often dropped in performance; so it’s great to be singing that.

“I think what I learned during the pandemic,” adds Smith, “is that whatever else is going on, I need to be doing something creative, and I always will. That’s how I ended up writing my solo show 65, and touring it around Scotland; sometimes it was just like old times, me and my husband Bob with all the props and stuff in the back of the car.

“What’s different, though, is that now it’s all about the work itself. When you’re 25, you’re constantly worried about whether people will love you, and whether you’ll be able to build a career.

“But now, more and more, I just want three things: to do a good job, serve the work, and entertain the people. And if I can do that, and also have a life and enjoy it, then I’m happy.”

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is at the Playhouse, Edinburgh, from 28 May until 1 June; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 11-15 June; King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 27 August until 8 September; and Eden Court Theatre, Inverness 10-15 September.