P.L. TraversWhy You’ll Love This Book by Cameron Mackintosh
Mary Poppins delights in letting us know that she “never explains anything” and yet the Banks family fall under her spell and other families all over the world are put back together again by the world’s most famous nanny.
I fell in love with Mary Poppins and Julie Andrews in 1964, just after I left school, when I went to see Walt Disney’s magical film. On reading the credits, I realised the film was based on books by P.L. Travers which I then read avidly, discovering that there were many more stories and characters than those in the film. Her forthright, quirkily funny dialogue stayed with me, brought to life in my head by Julie’s brilliant, no-nonsense delivery in the film. In the late 1970’s I tried, like many other producers, to see if I could get the stage rights to Mary Poppins – but to no avail. Over the years, I often used to think of Mary but it wasn’t until 1993 when I was introduced to her creator, the formidable Pamela Travers, that I found that she wouldn’t explain anything to me either. By then Pamela was a frail, but extremely sharp, 93 year old lady, living in her Chelsea house, in a street looking remarkably like Cherry Tree Lane, eyeing me up and down, asking me lots of questions as she batted away my own. I felt like Michael and Jane Banks, waiting to be told “you’ll do”.
After several meetings, Pamela decided that I really was interested in turning her books into a stage musical, rather than just putting the film on stage – something she had refused to allow for decades, wanting a new and different score. Once Pamela decided I could be trusted with her great creation – though she never admitted creating (a word she hated) Mary, or any of the other characters, saying that “Mary just arrived” – I was in turn able to persuade her that a stage musical could only be made by combining her stories with the key songs from the film. Realising that I was probably her best chance to achieve her long cherished dream of a stage musical, she agreed and I finally felt a musical Mary might fly after all.
Mary Poppins is, and always will be, unique; stern, dependable, businesslike, magical and yet eternally loveable. When Jane and Michael call out “we will never forget you Mary Poppins” you know that though she has flown away, the gift she has brought will remain for always and that Mary is genuinely happy that her charges are now: “practically perfect and I hope it remains so”. Though Pamela would never say where Mary came from, she did in fact give an answer to the children when they asked Mary, “where is your home?” and Mary replies, “My home is wherever I am”.