9IFCCP >FF; J?FN D8IP%%%
THE most surprising thing about the Mary Poppins sequel is how long it took Disney to get round to it.
P.L. Travers wrote eight collections of stories about the supernanny, so they can’t have spent the last 54 years hunting for material.
But after all this time, they’ve gone for the same “if it ain’t broke” approach they used with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Remember, Dick Van Dyke’s very dodgy Cockney accent?
Now we have LinManuel Miranda, the American star of stage hit Hamilton, mangling his vowels as van Dyke’s equally chipper lamplighter son Jack. How about that routine with the dancing chimney sweeps? Now we have a troop of Cockneys poledancing on street lights.
Here every sequence deliberately echoes one from the original. Is this a loving tribute or a dodgy retread? I suspect you’ll be too busy tapping your toes to care.
We’re now in the Great Slump of the 1930s, and Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) is a dopey artist with three children of his own (Nathanael Saleh, Pixie Davies and Joel Dawson).
After his wife died, he took a loan against the value of the family mansion, but after forgetting to make payments, he learns he will lose his home unless he pays up.
Luckily, he remembers his father left him a pile of shares. Then he remembers that he has lost the certificates. What will he do? Organise a quick fire sale of his huge pile? Sack Julie Walter’s housekeeper? Move to a slightly smaller house? Or head to the attic to sing a ballad lamenting the loss of his wife? No prizes for guessing the answer.
Just as you’re beginning to lose sympathy, Emily Blunt floats down from the clouds with a talking umbrella. Her Poppins is a slightly different animal from Julie Andrews’ version. She’s sterner, posher but thankfully just as charming.
As Michael and sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) searches for the certificates and tangles with Colin Firth’s evil bank manager, we’re treated to a raft of song and dance routines.
Highlights include a surreal bath scene, where we are transported to the ocean and a trip to a cartoon musical hall with talking animals. Blunt’s cut-glass accent transforms into convincing Cockney as she takes to the stage to perform A Cover Is Not The Book, a witty number laced with U-certificate innuendo.
It was here that I became convinced that Blunt was practically perfect casting.
Will they be singing it in 50 years time?
Probably not, but this warm trip down memory lane certainly provides a blissful escape.