Ring out wild bells of celebration for Mary Poppins. The magic nanny, with a flair for flying by solo umbrella and gorgeously played by Laura Michelle Kelly in a style of elegant, icy hauteur, has touched down in the West End. What a high-class, reconstituted vehicle has brought her here.
I never thought in my wildest theatrical fantasies that Walt Disney's syrup mountain of a film that has melted the hearts and softened the faculties of millions of children could be worked up into such a sharp, thoughtful stage musical.
The show's appeal is not just to juveniles, who will be captivated by Miss Kelly's pert way with magic and that Spoonful Of Sugar, but to adults at whom the stringent, talking stuff is aimed. Julian Fellowes, who has written the show's new book, has returned to the original writings of Poppins's creator for guidance.
In Richard Eyre's magnificently organised production, Disney's cute winsomeness has been drained away. A rueful, bracing satire that makes critical fun of uptight Anglo-Saxon attitudes, now emerges.
These middle-class Edwardian parents who cannot express their feelings, mainly ignore their children - superlatively played by Charlotte Spencer and the self-possessed Harry Stott - whose lives they entrust to Poppins.
"The things that really matter I lost on the way," sings David Haig's beautifully acted, banker daddy, who revels in chauvinism and petulant self-pity. Only when suspended from his banker's job does he realise there is more to life than the traditional, Edwardian pursuit of making money.
Miss Kelly's Poppins enlivens the kids' lives in a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon way. Brisk, brusque and tightly upholstered in an electric blue suit, she remains forever detached from the charges she loves.
Bob Crowley's terrific stage designs, based on black and white motifs brightening into primary colours, help the musical switch between real and fantastic worlds.
Black and white pencil backcloths of the facade of the family's house rise up to reveal the domestic interiors where the kitchen of Jenny Galloway's battle-axe housekeeper half collapses. In the children's rooms Miss Poppins brings adult-size toys to threatening life.
Read More
Out on the chimney tops Gavin Lee's excellent, jauntily sung sweep and cockney artist leads the catchy but vacuous Chim, Chim Cher-Eee and Step In Time, with brooms at the ready. These songs and notably, Anything Can Happen, one of the eight new, agreeable numbers with lyrics, music and words by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, are stirred into swinging, fervent action by choreographer Matthew Bourne.
Mr Lee's apparent ability to walk up a wall and upside down on the ceiling will cause much envy.
The musical and spectacular aspects of the overlong production, which drags in the first half, are less interesting than its narrative. Miss Kelly's passionately sung Mary cuts such an enigmatic, elegant and emotionally detached figure that she rivets attention as she faces up to Haig's highly comic model of illtempered, anxiety-laden pomposity, whether at home or at the bank.
When Mary is temporarily replaced by Rosemary Ashe's terrifying, witchlike nanny the action falters until Poppins's return. At her final departure, once she has helped the family to happiness, Miss Kelly floats into the air clutching her umbrella and then drifts into the rafters. Her elevation says it all: a star is born.
Mary Poppins
