It’s a jolly holiday with Mary at paulcarvill.com, the home of Paul Carvill on the web

Me and Kate went to see Mary Poppins last night, and it’s a stonker.

The production is heavily indebted to the 1964 film, especially in the costumes. But the producer has also gone back to the original PL Travers stories and reinstated some scenes with didn’t feature in the film. One interesting addition is the appearance of Mr Banks’s nanny of his youth – a bubbling cauldron of a woman.

Mary Poppins herself is in a younger incarnation, and appears much more amiable towards the children. Her aim, to reconcile the father and his children in the face of his demanind job, is made much more explicit from the start, and indeed much of Mary’s enigma from the film is dissipated.

But it’s the songs which really make the evening, and after rousing renditions of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “A Spoonful of Sugar” you’re guaranteed to go home happy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 at 10:58 pm and is filed under Theatre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.