Just a spoonful each of Walt Disney, Matthew Bourne, Cameron Mackintosh and Bob Crowley and there’s a practically perfect family musical in Mary Poppins. Playing to packed houses, the unbeatable creative quartet has crafted a spectacular show to enchant youngsters and oldies alike.
Based on the stories of P L Travers and the Disney film, Stefanie Jones is spit spot-on as the magical nanny, the practically perfect answer to the Banks children’s advert. Prim and proper one moment and cavorting on rooftops and with statues the next, Jones is poised and convincing.
Jack Chambers, also critically acclaimed in the recent Australian production, is a light-footed, ubiquitous cheeky chappie Bert: park painter, chimney sweep and more. If there is hoofing to be had—even upside down—Bert is there, although his mangled Cockney accent is on a par with Dick Van Dyke’s.
Julian Fellowes’s book rewrites Mrs Banks, Lucie-Mae Sumner (Barnum), as a wistful, would-be mum former actress rather than strident suffragette and introduces a pantomime baddie in the form of brimstone and treacle-wielding Miss Andrew (Mrs Brill last time round, Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary’s Wendy Ferguson).
Michael D Xavier (Olivier nominee for Into the Woods) is an uptight, awkward and weary George Banks whose glimmer of humanity threatens to break the bank, while recording star Patti Boulaye is a somewhat well-groomed Bird Woman.
Olivier nominee for The Witches of Eastwick Rosemary Ashe is Mrs Brill who, with nice-but-dim manservant (Matilda’s Ruairidh McDonald), provides slick slapstick and plenty of laughs.
The parts of bratty kids Jane and Michael Banks rotate between a number of talented ones-to-watch youngsters as they embark upon a magical non-stop journey of self-improvement littered with London skyline "Chim Chim Cher-eeing", "Jolly Holiday-ing" in the park, Mrs Corry’s "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" shop of conversations and a pared-back encounter feeding the pigeons.
George Stiles and Anthony Drewe’s additional songs are apposite, with "Practically Perfect" up there with the perennial favourites of the film. Richard Jones recreates Bourne’s choreography, and the inexhaustible superb company delivers a high-octane spectacle, while live music is always a bonus, although occasionally threatened to swamp the more delicate voices.
Crowley’s costumes are extravagant and colourful, but it is his sets which steal the show—the fabulous, fast-folding and pivoting 17 Cherry Tree Lane, complete with resurrecting shelves and tables; atmospheric landscapes ideal for kite flying, Technicolor trips, soaring vaulted bank and darkling, smoke-filled starry skies.
And a close runner-up is Paul Kieve and Jim Steinmeyer’s illusions with bottomless bags, flying nannies, magically appearing beds and more. Tremendous.
Rather more hard-edged than the beloved film—and with a rather scary toy box episode in the nursery—this is clearly a riotous success with standing ovations and sell-out performances.
Since its première at the Bristol Hippodrome in 2004, this stage adaptation of Mary Poppins has received over 50 major international awards, including two Olivier Awards and one Tony Award. Over 15 million people have witnessed the magic worldwide, with the production having been translated into 13 languages.