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In January 1994, talented British songwriters George Stiles and Anthony Drewe heard on the grapevine that Cameron Mackintosh had finally acquired the highly soughtafter stage rights for Mary Poppins.
What’s more, their names had been mentioned as possible writers.
"There had been rumours about it for a long time," says Drewe.
"But I don’t think we ever imagined it would be anything other than the film on stage with all the Sherman brothers’ songs."
Keen to be involved, they watched the film again and decided to write some new numbers as a calling card.
"The obvious place they hadn’t written a song was when Mary Poppins first meets the kids in the nursery," says Drewe. "We thought that ‘Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way’ was a great title for a song."
So, without being asked, they wrote a catchy, Shermanesque song called 'Practically Perfect' and sent it to Mackintosh with two others.
"It was so perfect, it’s exactly the same in the show today," says Mackintosh. ("Except for one reworked couplet," says Drewe.)
Richard M. Sherman, who wrote the film score with his lyricist brother Robert, would later describe it as "the best song I never wrote".
It took another seven years for Mackintosh to strike a deal with Disney to co-produce a musical, which featured the most popular songs from the film as well as new ones. But at last Stiles and Drewe got the go-ahead.
Mary Poppins premiered in London in 2004. On May 5, the Australian production has its Sydney opening, following a successful Melbourne season.
Stiles (composer) and Drewe (lyricist) are rising stars of British musical theatre. They met at university in 1981 and have worked together for 28 years on musicals including Honk!, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling, which won the 2000 Olivier Award for Best Musical (beating The Lion King and Mamma Mia!).
Their latest show Betty Blue Eyes, adapted from Alan Bennett’s film A Private Function, is previewing in London’s West End and is also produced by Mackintosh.
For Mary Poppins, they wrote eight new songs and reworked some of the original music from the film. 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', for example, was a two-minute patter song in the film but is now a six-minute production.
'Practically Perfect' comes near the top of the show (pushing 'A Spoonful of Sugar' down the order) after an overture and prologue featuring 'Feed the Birds' and 'Chim Chim Cher-ee' as well as a new song, 'Cherry Tree Lane'. "So we’re telling the audience they’re not going to be denied the songs they love from the film," says Stiles.
Mackintosh says Sherman loves their score: "He said, ‘Oh my God! You’ve actually taken our work to another place’."
© Nationwide News Pty Ltd.
