A spoonful of stardust for Mary Poppins
SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS! Yes, Mary Poppins is back — and not just in the blockbuster Disney film starring Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, but with Zizi Strallen and Charlie Stemp larger than life on stage.
The show will open in the autumn of 2019 at the Prince Edward Theatre, the very same venue that the Cameron Mackintosh and Disney production opened at in 2004.
Aladdin, the current occupant of the Prince Edward, will end its run on August 31, 2019.
Mackintosh cast Stemp in the lead role in Half A Sixpence at Chichester Festival Theatre, and later at the Noel Coward Theatre. That show made Stemp a star.
Broadway producer Scott Rudin whisked him over to New York and had him appear with Bernadette Peters and Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! as lovestruck Barnaby Tucker.
‘He really made something of that part; he made it special,’ said Mackintosh. ‘He stood out and became a star in New York.’
I saw him in it, so can vouch for the fact that Stemp’s dancing feet wowed Broadway.
Matthew Bourne and co-choreographer Stephen Mear are planning to give Stemp some special steps when they begin work on Poppins with director Richard Eyre.
Bourne is already acquainted with Zizi Strallen because she danced in his company.
‘We’ll rebuild the show around both of them,’ said Mackintosh, who reminded me that Strallen played the famous nanny in a tour of the show. More recently she has been in Strictly Ballroom at the Piccadilly Theatre and Follies at the National Theatre.
Impresario Mackintosh told me that the creative team, including writer Julian Fellowes and songwriters George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (who wrote some new numbers), along with designer Bob Crowley, redesigned and re-staged the production when it toured the UK and globally.
It’s presently playing Hamburg and Tokyo and is about to hit Milan.
‘Everyone thought it was going to be a movie on stage, but it isn’t,’ insisted Mackintosh. ‘It’s a proper stage musical.’
Mackintosh said that he and Disney’s global theatre boss Thomas Schumacher wanted to announce the new stage production of Poppins now so it was well in advance of the film, which opens on December 21 in the UK.
But tickets for the musical won’t go on sale until January, well after the film has opened. Meanwhile, fans can register for stage show tickets at website marypoppinsonstage. co.uk, which goes live shortly.