WHEN tackling a musical as beloved and seminal as Mary Poppins you're walking a narrow tightrope of expectations.
The songs, the dances, and most importantly, the characters, are so vividly etched in the audience's mind.
You'd be hard pressed to find a soul that hasn't watched the 1964 Disney film about a magical nanny who enters the lives of a dysfunctional middle-class family, which is lacking in fun and love due to work pressures and suffocating societal norms.
Overwhelmingly, Newcastle's Very Popular Theatre Company have smashed it out of the park and down Cherry Tree Lane with their new production of Mary Poppins The Broadway Musical.
With a budget of $1.2 million it's one of the most expensive theatre productions seen in Newcastle, and it looked it. The production value was impressive.
Whether it was the Banks family home in Edwardian London, the recreation of the neighbourhood park, the sooty rooftops or when the children's toys sprang to life like zombies, director-producer Daniel Stoddart and his team were able to immerse the audience in this magical world.
This was especially the case when Max Howard's Bert walked up a wall and along the ceiling during the thrilling Step In Time sequence.
Of course, the elaborate sets, music and production are meaningless without the performers.
Stoddart has discovered a striking talent in the Central Coast's Felicity Beale. Stepping into the red jacket and grabbing the parrot umbrella to become lovable nanny Mary Poppins - made famous by Julie Andrews' Academy Award-winning performance - is a daunting task.
But Beale carried herself like a genuine star. The National Institute of Dramatic Art graduate's vocals impressed on the lively Practically Perfect and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and gave Feed The Birds (Tuppence A Bag) a sweet melancholy when she harmonised with the Bird Woman, played by Rosalia Kennedy.
Beale was able to distil a sternness and vanity in Mary, while maintaining the character's overriding goodness.
Newcomer Max Howard, 18, at times lacked the gravitas as the fun-loving jack-of-all-trades Bert, particularly in the scenes with heavy dialogue. Dancing is the Novocastrian's strongest suit and his tap routine during Step In Time delivered a deserved rousing response from the audience.
Newcastle's Luke Power was commanding as George Banks, playing the family patriarch with an entertaining pomposity, and Maitland's Reilly Mitchison displayed comic timing beyond his 11 years as the precocious Michael Banks.
Zoe Walker's time on stage as the Miss Andrew "the Holy Terror" was brief, but she stole every scene she appeared in as the tyrannical nanny wanting to dose the Banks children with "cod liver oil" and "carbolic soap."
Miss Andrew and Poppins' operatic "sing off" battle in Brimstone and Treacle Part 2 was chaotic fun.
Stoddart and his Very Popular Theatre Company team have been unapologetically ambitious in their presentation of Mary Poppins. The iconic songs and characters have long been fixed in our cultural consciousness, but they need to be portrayed truthfully and entertainingly.
On both counts this latest production of Mary Poppins is like a spoonful of sugar.
