Will the new Mary Poppins film do the original justice?

Altogether now: “Chim chimeny chim chimeny chim chim chereeeeeeeee….” as we dance across the rooftops to celebrate the news that Mary Poppins is returning.

A sequel, set in Depression-era London and featuring grown-up Michael and Jane Banks, is due to be premiered on Christmas Day, 2018 (I know, I can’t even manage to get myself organised for the Christmas period of the year I’m in, let alone think ahead to what I might be watching at the cinema a couple of years hence).

But it’s good news for people like myself who, when they love a film, spend a great deal of time when it’s finished whining “but I want to know what happened next.” This is why I am thrilled it is to be a sequel and not a remake. I’m sorry but I don’t really get the point of remakes, especially of classics like The Jungle Book.

I realise there’s probably plenty of non-PC content in the original Mary Poppins, but frankly this was always far outweighed for me by watching The Teenager when she was The Toddler, marching round the room in front of the film singing about votes for women with great gusto.

I don’t even mind that there will be no Bert and his unique cockney accent. Instead, we are promised a lamplighter in the form of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of the hit Broadway musical, Hamilton. Fair dos.

And Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins? She has my blessing too.

Because it’s all about what happened next and that’s what we need to know, not a rehash of the original – which was of course practically perfect in every way. I am slightly worried about the song content though. How can you top Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

Maybe there will be no singing – I have to confess to reading only the headlines about the new film, rather than any factual details. Just through overexcitement really.

Am now slightly worried I may have made the whole thing up. Maybe I’ve gone into a dream sequence like that bit on the carousel with the penguins. I can feel a spoonful of sugar coming on.