Mary Poppins

It seems impossible to write about Mary Poppins without using the phrase ‘Practically Perfect’. It’s prominent in every promotion for the musical that’s resident on the Festival Theatre stage for almost two months, and is a well-known song that introduces the flying nanny in this production.

The stage show has a lot to live up to: the original novels from Australian P L Travers were classics; the famous 1964 film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke’s atrocious East End accent was a marvel – even if Travers didn’t care for it much. The musical only got to the stage because Travers made the producer (Cameron Mackintosh) promise that the writers would be English and that no-one involved in the movie would work on the musical.

But is it ‘practically perfect’? My goodness, yes, it is! From the moment the cast are silhouetted on stage behind the scrim in a tableau worthy of an ovation, the show launches into movement, colour, singing, magic, and so many moments that make you gasp, smile, and applaud.

The set design and construction are simply brilliant. And big! Often, the problem with touring productions is that everything has to be squeezed into trucks and unpacked into theatres of different dimensions, so you lose some of that ‘wow’ factor present in the originally intended design. But not here – the set fills the enormous Festival Theatre stage in every direction, and it glides in and out, up and down, unfolds and turns: each reveal is a delight even before the performers start to move. The scene transitions are a star in their own right – they look great, they’re well-timed, and they don’t need to wait for anyone: budding theatre directors should be taking notes on how Poppins changes tempo between scenes without losing momentum of the story. 

The signature design element is tableau: the performers start and end major scenes in a frozen state, posed as if for a huge painting, and they are impeccable. There’s more art in these openings and closes than in the entire duration of some plays I’ve seen this year.

And once unfrozen, the movement is brilliant: the ensemble is well-drilled – their ‘step in time’ is exactly that – and the energy in how they move on stage is explosive. Not just in the dance numbers, which are exceptional in ballet, contemporary, and tap (I know it’s a gimmick, but it’s still mighty impressive to tap-dance upside down, suspended twenty metres above the stage). And it’s not just in the big dance numbers, they work well together as a group even when there’s no music. The scene in Mrs Corry’s shop is a great show of how twenty or so performers can move as one – crouching in on a conversation, recoiling in shock to what is said; even the old men on the board of the bank, whilst moving awkwardly, are still balletic in how they change positions. Every member of the cast moves with purpose, and each step is silky smooth.

Stefanie Jones is Mary Poppins, resplendent in her red and blue overcoats and black-brimmed boater. Jones is a great performer, pulling focus whenever she is on stage, her energy infectious with those around her – particularly the children, Michael and Jane. There are four pairs of performers during the Adelaide season, and on opening night, these two displayed fantastic talent in every aspect of their performance, even their English accents.

That of Jack Chambers’ Bert occasionally calls back to the movie’s Van Dyke, but it is a tiny blemish on an otherwise flawless performance. His chemistry with Jones sparkles without it being inappropriate, his voice is excellent, and his dancing wonderfully fluid, whether ballroom or tap. He’s just the right amount of cheeky and clearly enjoys every second on stage.

Patti Newton hides under rags but sings beautifully in ‘Feed the Birds’ – her voice and presence brings meaning amongst the frivolity of spectacle. Tom Wren is the right kind of bumbling Englishman – Mr Banks could be annoyingly dated as a man who thinks his place is to provide while his wife ‘entertains’, but Wren offers more depth as someone who doesn’t entirely believe what 1930s society is telling him. His wife Winifred, played with restraint by Lucy Maunder, could have more to say on this, but simmers enough within the bounds of the script to give a less than subtle hint of what’s coming in gender politics.

This is one of the thorns in the Poppins rosebush: in the movie, the attempt to address the inequalities was with Winifred being a member of the Suffragette movement. That isn’t continued in the musical, instead she has a past as a working actress, who loves the flourish of theatre, tempered by her husband’s rules that were abusively drilled into him by his nanny. There are also strong themes of class, and how you should stay in whatever society you were born into. Again, the revived musical does allow the characters to cross boundaries, though it’s still centred in a house with the well-off family living upstairs, whilst the servants are beneath them.

However, the whole premise of this show is that there are more important things in your life than your job and your status – and as a family musical, this is where Poppins succeeds the most. Children will recognise the bad behaviours, perhaps be grateful the 1930s methods of dealing with them are (mostly) grandparents’ memories, though maybe become a little terrified during the song in the nursery ‘Playing the Game’. Yet they will laugh a lot and their mouths will be opened wide during the illusions that are almost casually in every scene of the show; even if you know how it ends, the execution is pure magic – even for the adults.

So what wasn’t practically perfect? The physical comedy seemed a little forced in the kitchen scene, and the initial sound mix between voice and instruments wasn’t always spot on – but this could be opening night nerves and fine-tuning for the full theatre.

All the performers are excellent; the lighting and visual effects add superbly to the overall vision – and the sound design is exceptional: there’s a full aural surround experience that is expected in movies but uncommon in theatre, and it works so well here.

If you don’t know the songs before you get there, the best ones are sung at least twice, so you’ll be humming them as you leave the theatre. Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman’s songs from the movie are ever present, and the more recent additions from George Stiles and Anthony Drewe are seamlessly stitched into the story. The themes of ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ recur from the opening bars to the end, as does the haunting ‘Feed the Birds’, but ‘Jolly Holiday’, ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’, ‘Let’s Go Fly A Kite’, ‘Step in Time’ and ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ are all overwhelming spectacles for the eyes and ears.

Don’t wait until the wind changes – get down to Cherry Tree Lane now!

Mark Wickett

Photographer: Daniel Boud