Time for a guest post – my name is also Sarah but you can call me Blondtress, extremely loooong time friend of Sarah of Just Me fame (met at primary school when we were 4!)
On Wednesday, 8 June, I had an awesome phone call from Sarah. Her little sister about to give birth to her nephew but that was only part of the wonderful news – because of that I got to go in Sarah’s place to Mary Poppins, the Musical, that night at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney! Talk about – Woot! Woot!
I loved Mary Poppins, the movie, when I was a little girl and still do. Julie Andrews is my favourite actress of all time. I was bummed when I missed out on going with some other girlfriends to Melbourne to see the Musical so I was super excited to see it when I got this chance.
I took my step-mum along as she had been dying to see it also.
She went to line up and get us a program each while I went to collect our tickets from the box office.
I got yet another surprise when the lady behind the counter handed me a Mary Poppins bag with the tickets. They had given us a program, mini info booklet, a Behind The Scenes DVD, a phot CD of the Australian cast, a full CD of the Original Australian Cast Recording and a beautiful red hard cover book that had 3 things inside, an original program from the Broadway version of Mary Poppins, a set and design folio and a Mary Poppins book with pictures throughout from the Musical and the story of how the Musical happened. It was gorgeous.
I ran to my step-mum to stop her buying a program and we stepped aside and went through the goodie bag.
I was so excited so I went in early and found our seats which were in the stalls row H on the right hand side, fantastic view.
Of course, as you do, I tweeted and facebooked that I was sitting in the theatre waiting for the show to start.
Then…..the curtain went up and there was Burt aka Matt Lee. Then the “wind came in from the east” and we entered the world of No. 17 Cherry Tree Lane.
What a wonderful show full of singing and dancing. There is some very cheeky dialogue from Miss Poppins aka Verity Hunt Ballard and you never really know what the relationship between Burt and Mary is. Was she his nanny, had they ever been together…
The Musical is a little bit different from the movie. Some of the storyline was changed to be adapted for the stage and there are some different songs but it was really just superb.
My favourite scene in the entire show has to be “A Step in Time” when all the chimney sweeps come out. Just awesome foot work, especially from Matt Lee.
A close second favourite part is of course “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.
The song that I was singing the whole next day in my head though was “Just….a…..spoonful of sugar helps the medicine goes down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down…” (and now you will have it stuck too, I’m sure!)
During the intermission we went for a walk out the front to stretch our legs and we purchased some drinks. I got a frozen blue lemonade in a Mary Poppins cup, complete with bendy straw 
What a big kid I am!
The ending is a bit breathtaking and I won’t spoil it for you, you will just have to go and see it for yourself.
The only thing missing was, Marina Prior, who is cast at Winifred Banks, we had her understudy for the night. That was the only disappointing part. The rest was “Practically Perfect”!
After the show we got to have drinks and meet some of the cast. I also got my program signed.
Below are the photos I got with Matt Lee, Verity Hunt-Ballard, Philip Quast (who plays George Banks – I remembered him from his Playschool days) and Christopher Rickerby (who plays Robertson Ay – the odd job man who assists Mrs Brill in the Banks Kitchen).
Thank you so much to Sarah for allowing me to regress to my childhood for a night and thank you to Disney and Mary Poppins, the Musical for the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious experience!
Blondtress
