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Within minutes of the show's opening there's a new, hummable song sung by the heroine that announces she's "Practically Perfect" - and you know resistance is futile. Mary Poppins IS practically perfect and there's an end to it.
Cameron Mackintosh's latest production has been "much anticipated" and "long awaited" and all those other tense feelings that precede a major show which opened its Australian campaign in Melbourne. Word has long been drifting up from the south suggesting Poppins is a winner and Sydney audiences have been quick to grab her umbrella.
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The Australian cast is the tops. As the world's most famous nanny, Verity Hunt Ballard has repaid in spades the much-publicised "hunt for Australia's Poppins". She is Mary - spiky, lovable, indefinably otherworldly and not an imitation Julie Andrews - and that, along with her magical umbrella, helps the show fly from the start. As Mr Banks the banker, Philip Quast is brusque and pompous before falling under Mary's spell, while Marina Prior as Mrs Banks, is ditzy and warm-hearted; and of course, both sing like angels.
© Stage Noise
