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The musical city of Melbourne seems an appropriate setting for a stage production of Mary Poppins, writes Megan Anderson.
There's a strange kind of music to Melbourne, and that's what makes the stage version of Mary Poppins so right for this town.
It's late afternoon and I'm sitting in one of the darker coffee roasteries in Degraves St. It's all shadowy, because both sides of the lane have to huddle inwards to keep warm, but the rich coffee-bean vapour of the place keeps it cheerful.
Everything is quite still, until Victoria by the Kinks blasts from the kitchen. Suddenly the staff start singing, the barista is dancing and there's some serious head-banging and hair-flicking.
It isn't really that surprising. The entire city seems locked into exactly the kind of musical madness you see when all those chimney sweeps swarm into the show's Cherry Tree Lane.
Buskers plant themselves on street corners, and most are pretty damn good. Roam the place and you'll find not only impromptu cafe performances but gigs and concerts.
The clip-clap of trotting, so reminiscent of Mary's London, is not uncommon either, as horse and carriages trot by, flanked by clattering toybox trams.
This city is the perfect setting for the sensory pastiche that is the musical.
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