Dame Julie Andrews Shares her Memoirs with Australian Audiences.

Stage Whispers’ reporter Sally Alrich-Smythe attended Julie Andrews’ press conference, at the start of her Australian tour, and shares the highlights.

Our favourite songstress Julie Andrews, aka Mary Poppins, Sound of Music’s Maria, Victor/Victoria and the beloved Queen of Genovia in Princess Diaries, has come to Australia touring with her new show An Evening With Julie Andrews. In response to the question “what took you so long to get here?” Miss Andrews responded with a smile “a little thing called life”, and proceeded to tell us some ins and outs of what she’s been up to after and during her singing career.

A great deal of Julie Andrews’ memoirs don’t revolve around her role as a flying nanny or “the problems of being Maria”, but more so the roles that she is less renowned for, those that are more “her”. She admits in good humour that “I think that you’re as popular as the most popular film you’ve done”, but is quick to add that she would never put down those films. Though they may have stopped people seeing her in other ways, Miss Andrews said, she was incredibly lucky to have been asked to play those iconic roles, which have undeniably shaped her career and popularity as a movie-star since.

Video at Julie Andrews' Media Call

The question on all of our lips is how does she cope without the ability to sing today? She said that when she first discovered her throat would not recover after the 1997 operation, she wasn’t sure how she was going to occupy her time. During a session with her daughter, wherein the two of them were in the process of writing their first book together, Julie was solemn about having lost what she once loved more than anything when her daughter said, “Mum, you’ve just found a new way to use your voice!”She describes this moment as “the weight lifted off my shoulders”, for there is more than one way to communicate. The two have written 30 books together since that day, and writing, she says, has become a good substitute passion for singing. Of course, she and the rest of us can be thankful it happened to her in her later life, and not when she was younger.

Another question was “which role would you say you enjoyed playing the most?” She sighed and responded, “I’m going to give you a really stupid analogy. If you had six to eight puppies, which were all adorable, and you were asked ‘which one do you like best?’…Every character is different… you love them for different reasons.” I think we were all a little disappointed she didn’t give us more goss than that! She promised us, however, that she is saving all of her stories, including the highs and lows from every film she’s been involved in, for her show.

So what do we have to look forward to in An Evening with Julie Andrews? Since, of course, she won’t be singing, Miss Andrews calls it “a conversation”. It will detail her life and how she started out, highly recommending show people like us come along to learn her pathway and how we should go about starting an acting career. There will be footage from all of the favourites, plus some unseen clips which are promised to make us laugh. A lot of Miss Andrews’ favourite memoirs come out of her home and family life, so the audience is guaranteed a sneak peak of loveable Mary Poppins off camera. The entire talk will conclude with a Q&A session, offering anyone the incredible opportunity to ask Julie Andrews a question of their own.

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