Mary Poppins musical - Chim, chim cheroo sweeps into Auld Reekie

As the east wind blows the long-awaited Mary Poppins musical on to the Edinburgh stage, Susan Mansfield goes behind the scenes to chat with the cast

THERE are some pairs of shoes that are very hard to fill, and
they don't come much harder than the Edwardian lace-up
boots ofMary Poppins.

The part was brought so iconically to life by Julie Andrews in Disney's 1964 film that some might argue that it would be futile to attempt
a reprise.

But there was no telling that to Cameron Mackintosh, who believed Poppins could be a supercalifragilistic success on the stage. He waited for 25 years to secure the rights to the story from the author, PL Travers, and for the right time for a partnership with Disney, which held the rights to the film. In 2001, the pieces of the jigsaw finally came together.

His production of Poppins closed on the West End in January after three successful years, and is touring in the UK for the first time prior to an international tour. When I caught up with the cast in Birmingham, prior to their visit to Edinburgh, they were full of praise for the way in which Mackintosh has brought the story to the stage in a new way.

"I think Cameron and the rest of the production team were very clever in acknowledging that you can't just transfer the same product to a different medium," says Martin Ball, who plays George Banks, the father of Jane and Michael. "We needed to start again and make the thing theatrically valid in its own right.

"Julian Fellowes (whom Mackintosh hired to write the script) has done a wonderful job of going back to the books and digging deep to find that dark side, and exploiting that in order to give us a story with an emotional heart to sit alongside all the best of the Disney version."

Along with Fellowes, the acclaimed writer of Gosford Park, Mackintosh secured Richard Eyre to direct the show, and Matthew Bourne (Edward Scissorhands, Portrait of Dorian Gray) as choreographer/co-director. George Stiles and Anthony Drewe were engaged to write a raft of new songs to blend in seamlessly with those retained from the Disney version.

Described as a "labour of love" for Mackintosh, the show lacks nothing in ambition: a fantastic revolving doll's house set; fast, complex dance sequences; and a few other secrets that I'm sworn not to disclose before opening night. The touring production will be every bit as big and ambitious as the West End one. "Cameron has the best people because he can, because he is the best," says Ball.

But the job of filling those very special shoes is all down to Caroline Sheen, who plays Poppins. She admits to being an immense fan of Julie Andrews. "She was wonderful, I wouldn't ever dream of trying to copy her because that would just be rude," she says. "I was absolutely obsessed with Mary Poppins as a child, I had an LP that my mum would sit me down to listen to with big headphones and Hoover around me. I'm trying my best to be as good as she was. Luckily the show is not the same as the film, so it's not so difficult to get away from that portrayal and bring something of your own to it. I think they've really honoured every aspect of Mary Poppins, the Disney Mary and the Travers Mary. The show honours them both and takes it into another parallel universe."

Travers was always coy about where the character came from. In fact, her original Poppins could be vain and contrary, as well as kind. The Mackintosh Poppins seems to fall somewhere between this tricksy schoolmarm and the sparkly, kindly Julie Andrews.

Sheen contrasts her with Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, whom she has also played. "Truly is very warm, very loving to the children, she's a kind of surrogate mother. I can't be that in this show because I'm trying to get them to relate to their own mother and father better. Every now and again the director would say to me in rehearsals, 'Don't forget, she's not human, she's magical.'"

If Mary has a tendency to be prim and aloof, that puts the onus on Bert the chimney sweep (Daniel Crossley) to win the audience over, which he does with great warmth. "I think the audience recognises that it's tough love with Mary, she gets results but she doesn't necessarily get them by being everybody's friend. I'm like your uncles and aunts, who were always much better fun than your parents because they could send you back. Bert gets the best of children and they get the best of him."

How does he feel about stepping into the shoes made iconic by Dick Van Dyke? "The film is unavoidable, it's such a classic, it's on every Christmas. I did know it but I didn't purposely go back directly to it when I was rehearsing because I wanted to try to bring something of my own to it. There's a danger of imitating, of thinking, 'I'll do it like he did it because he was a success.'

"I suppose it's about getting enough of what people recognise and want from the part. Physically I'm very different from Dick Van Dyke because he's very tall and slim and I'm sort of a bit shorter and stockier. In a way that's nice because I couldn't do what he did even if I wanted to, I have to reinvent to a degree."

What Mackintosh and Fellowes have done so cleverly is conjure a story from the Poppins books that is both entirely Edwardian and yet has modern resonances: a workaholic father who barely sees his children; a woman whose husband is slipping away from her; two badly behaved kids who need their parents' love. Underneath the song and dance numbers there is the story of a family gradually getting back in touch.

"There are enormous parallels with modern life aren't there?" says Martin Ball "The central problem in this production, of family dysfunction, is incredibly topical." Even Mr Banks's suspension from his banking job midway through the show takes on a chillingly contemporary twist in the current financial climate.

Ball and Louise Bowden, who plays Mrs Banks, agree that there is a serious play embedded in the all-singing and all-dancing show. "We play the real side of the show," says Bowden. "We're the truth and there's the showbiz, the two are seamlessly amalgamated, the realism and the magic. Sir Richard Eyre said, if there was another title for the show, it would be The Journey of Mr & Mrs Banks, because it really is about their journey as a couple, as a family."

But the challenge the cast face is how to bring that story alive every night with freshness and sincerity, eight times a week on a 12-month tour. Martin Ball says the secret is in the moment of expectant silence just before the curtain goes up.

"You can feel and hear that expectant silence of 2,000 people who haven't seen the show before. It doesn't matter how many times you've done it, or indeed frankly what kind of day you've had yourself, you now have a story to tell, and people are sitting there waiting for it. At that moment, it doesn't matter how many times you've done it, you haven't done it tonight yet."

• Mary Poppins is at the Playhouse, Edinburgh, from today until 6 December



BACKGROUND

"IT HAS always been my wish that we should have a musical of Mary Poppins," wrote the character's creator, PL Travers, to her executors before she died in 1996.

Travers, born in 1899 in Queensland, Australia, wrote the first of her Mary Poppins novels in 1934, after settling in Sussex. Set in London in 1910, the stories of Mary Poppins offered a picture of middle-class England that maintained its ever-eroding Victorian morality but centred on an enchanting heroine. The combination of morals and magic made the novels ideal material for America's wholesome entertainment industry.

When she was approached by Samuel Goldwyn, MGM and Disney for the film rights, however, Travers was tenacious in her refusals, fearing the potential for manipulation. MGM and Goldwyn finally dropped out of the race, leaving Disney in a 20-year struggle with her. Eventually the rights were secured and Disney went ahead with its all-singing, all-dancing musical.

The film was premiered in 1964, and as the credits rolled, Walt Disney received a five-minute standing ovation, while the 65-year-old author sat silently weeping over what she saw as a travesty. She hated the cartoon sequence and felt the movie had done "a strange violence" to her work, "It's as though they took a sausage, threw away the contents and filled the skin with their own ideas far from the original substance," she said. When she complained to Disney he responded with: "Pamela, the ship has sailed."

In 1993 Travers met Cameron Mackintosh. On this occasion Travers was much easier to persuade. However, fearing Americanisation she insisted only English writers be allowed to work on the script. Her wish was granted, and Julian Fellowes, who would later win an Oscar for his Gosford Park screenplay, was given charge of the quill.

Travers was remembered on the opening day of rehearsals as the director noted: "I'm sure Pamela Travers is here, today, in spirit… and you can be sure she'd have plenty of notes for us already."