Overview
A spoonful of sugar isn't needed to make this medicine go down: the Mary Poppins musical is coming to Melbourne. Umbrellas at the ready for the most supercalifragilisticexpialidocious news that you'll hear all day, and all year as well, with the tale of the singing nanny set to take over Her Majesty's Theatre from Sunday, January 29, 2023.
Mary Poppins comes to Melbourne after its Australian-premiere Sydney season and then a stop in Brisbane, and hails from Disney and theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh. This current version of the show tells the same enchanting tale that everyone knows from the hugely popular, five-time Oscar-winning 1964 film — which, as well as inspiring this stage adaptation, also gave rise to big-screen sequel Mary Poppins Returns in 2018.
(Everything to do with the English governess harks back to PL Travers' books about the character, of course, and pop culture has been thankful for and downright delighted with her stories for almost six decades now.)
When it soars through its Melbourne season over the summer of 2023 through to Sunday, April 2, local theatre fans can look forward to a new version of the show that last graced Australia's stages — and won eight Helpmann Awards — back in 2011. Since Mackintosh first teamed up with writer Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) to bring Mary Poppins to the theatre in 2004, the production has won four Olivier Awards and a Tony as well.
The local cast includes Stefanie Jones as Mary Poppins and Jack Chambers as Bert, as well as Tom Wren as George Banks, Lucy Maunder as Winifred Banks and Hannah Waterman as Mrs Brill. Also appearing: Gareth Isaac as Robertson Ay, Robert Grubb as Chairman and Admiral Boom, Cherine Peck as Mrs Corry, Lisa Sontag as Miss Lark, Kade Hughes as Neleus, Stephen Anderson as Park Keeper and Andrew Broadbent as Policeman.
If you'd been crossing your fingers that a date with Poppins, the Banks family and their Cherry Tree Lane abode might also come Melbourne's way, consider that wish granted. Consider 'A Spoonful of Sugar', 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', the Oscar-winning 'Chim Chim Cher-ee' and 'Let's Go Fly a Kite' stuck firmly in your head until January blows in, too.
Check out the musical's trailer below:
Mary Poppins will play Her Majesty's Theatre from Sunday, January 29–Sunday, April 2, 2023. To sign up for the ticket waitlist, head to the musical's website — with presales from 10am on Monday, September 12 and general sales from 9am on Monday, September 19.
Images: Daniel Boud.