MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Is there a more beloved screen musical than Mary Poppins? The Walt Disney-produced 1964 classic, based on the series of novels by P. L. Travers, made a star of actress Julie Andrews, entered songs like “Feed the Birds,” “A Spoonful of Sugar,” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” into the enduring cinematic lexicon, and won the hearts of children and adults all around the world. When it was announced that, more than 50 years later, a sequel was in production, it was inevitable that comparisons between it and the original would be made – how could they not be? The potential for disaster was enormous. Thankfully for all concerned, Mary Poppins Returns is a triumph in every respect, an overwhelmingly joyous ‘happiness bomb’ that pays respectful homage to the legendary first film while continuing the story in a thoughtful, respectful, fun, and emotional way. The film is set some thirty years after the first one, in pre-War rather than Edwardian London, and finds the original Banks children Jane and Michael as adults. Michael is a widower with three children of his own, living in his father’s home; however, in the aftermath of his wife’s death, Michael has sunk into a depression, and is in danger of losing the house to the bank. Just as all hope seems lost their magical childhood nanny, Mary Poppins, returns, and with the help of a London lamplighter named Jack, sets about putting things right for the Banks children for a second time.

The first thing that had to be done correctly was the casting, and the producers of the film did a tremendous job. Emily Blunt steps into the enormous shoes of Julie Andrews in the lead role and makes the thing her own; her take on the character is closer in tone to the character from the novels than Andrews’s was, and comes across a little more self-absorbed and acerbic as opposed to Andrews’s appealing sweetness, which makes her a great deal of fun. Broadway superstar Lin-Manuel Miranda takes over Dick Van Dyke’s role as Mary’s chipper Cockney chum; his Jack is introduced as a former apprentice of Van Dyke’s Bert, but is a ‘leerie’ lamplighter rather than a chimney sweep, and his London accent is almost as bad as old Dick’s was, which is just perfect. Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer play the grown up Michael and Jane Banks, with Whishaw being especially effective at conveying the grief of a man lost without his wife. Pixie Davies, Nathaniel Saleh, and Joel Dawson play the new generation of Banks children, and there are extended cameos from Julie Walters as the family housekeeper, Colin Firth as the bank manager, and Meryl Streep as Mary’s oddly-accented cousin Topsy.

Technically, Mary Poppins Returns is a masterpiece. Director Rob Marshall has recaptured the look and feel of the original film perfectly, and special attention should be given to the gorgeous production design and costumes. The film also contains several wondrous animated sequences which, like the original, places live actors within animated backgrounds. These were achieved by asking many of Disney’s original animators – some of whom had already retired – to come back and produce thousands of new hand-drawn images. The result is a nostalgic throwback to the 2D animation of the time, rendered with painstaking attention to detail. Both the underwater sequence and the Royal Doulton Music Hall sequence are things of sheer beauty, and allow viewers to wallow in the glorious technicolor magic of their childhoods.

The final piece of the puzzle is, of course, the music. The score and songs from the original film – by Richard M. Sherman, the late Robert B. Sherman, and conductor/adaptor Irwin Kostal – are the stuff of Hollywood legend, standing among some of the most recognizable melodies in the history of cinema. Following on from their work would be just as daunting a task as Blunt’s was taking over from Andrews; the music had to be tuneful, memorable, fit within the expected tonal parameters, and most importantly tell the story through song, with lyrics that are as verbally dexterous and intellectual as anything the Shermans wrote. Thankfully the men who were hand picked for the job – Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman – succeeded on every level, despite admitting they were both ‘petrified with fear’ at taking on this challenge. Shaiman is the Oscar-nominated composer of such great scores as The American President, The First Wives Club, Patch Adams, City Slickers, The Addams Family, and many others. In collaboration with Wittman, Shaiman is also responsible for numerous smash hit shows on Broadway, including Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which more than cements their pedigree.

The legacy of the Shermans runs deep within the bones of Mary Poppins Returns, just as Shaiman and Wittman intended it to. In terms of the score, Shaiman often uses familiar little chord progressions that call back to the original film’s melodies, and even interpolates little thematic statements from those iconic songs at appropriate moments. In terms of the song lyrics, the pair takes pains to use a complicated rhyming structure similar to the way the Shermans wrote, while maintaining a strong intellectual quality with clever word association and a rich and varied vocabulary. Each song comes across as a reflection of one from the first film – “Can You Imagine That” is “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “The Royal Doulton Music Hall” is “Jolly Holiday,” “A Cover is Not the Book” is “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “The Place Where Lost Things Go” is a combination of “Feed the Birds” and “Stay Awake,” “Turning Turtle” is “I Love to Laugh,” “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” is “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “Step in Time,” “Nowhere to Go But Up” is “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” and so on – but this is not to say that they simply aped what the Shermans did. Rather, it feels like a natural progression of the sensibility lovingly curated by two men whose musical careers were in many ways shaped by the soundtrack to the original film.

The opening song is “Underneath the Lovely London Sky,” performed by Miranda, which sets the scene and accompanies Jack as he travels around on his trusty bicycle lighting the street lamps of London. The lyrics are sweet, wistful, evocative, and just a little ironic considering that the lovely London skies are often filled with grey clouds like wet towels, but it romanticizes the setting for the audience, while Shaiman’s lush orchestrations gives it enough of a goose-bump factor to be moving. I especially love the slightly moody statement of Mary’s theme at the very beginning of the song (more on that later), the peal of bells that accompanies an establishing shot of St. Paul’s Cathedral at 2:04, and the arrangement of Jack’s theme beginning at 2:14 which has the unmistakable sound of a fairground merry-go-round. The subsequent “A Conversation” gives the audience it’s emotional jumping off point: it’s a heartbreaking lament in which the adult Michael Banks sings about how much he desperately misses his wife, and how lonely his life has become since her death. Ben Whishaw, a non-trained singer, speaks and stammers and sometimes sobs his lines, which gives the song an unexpectedly poignant quality. Shaiman’s pretty music box arrangements often emerge into warmly sentimental orchestral tones that are just lovely.

After Mary arrives back in the life of the Banks family, she quickly whisks Michael’s three children off on a magical adventure via their bathtub. “Can You Imagine That” is a broad, lush, vibrant song for an Esther Williams-esque underwater sequence filled with animated fish and pirate ships and kaleidoscopic dance imagery. The song’s lyrics are quirky and clever and have a double-edged intention; initially, they have a touch of reverse psychology for the benefit of the very serious children, with Mary sounding gently incredulous at the idea that people might actually *want* to take a seaside holiday, but eventually it morphs into a song about the power and importance of fun and play in children’s lives. Blunt sings the whole thing with an exaggerated Received Pronunciation accent that is simply divine, darling, but also with a touch of mischief in her voice – when she’s on her own time, away from the children, Mary clearly enjoys flapping about in bathtub gin herself! The orchestral sound gets more massive as the song progresses, eventually turning into an old-fashioned Hollywood showstopper that is just glorious. I also love the surreptitious nod to another Disney classic, Peter Pan, in the line about pirates ‘not growing up or growing old’ – it’s author, J. M. Barrie, left the rights to the story in perpetuity to London’s Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in 1929, which fits within this story’s timeline.

Mary’s second adventure with Jack and the children sees them vanishing into an animated landscape hitherto only seen on the side of the Royal Doulton porcelain bowl that sits on their mantle; the scene is analogous to the ‘jolly holiday’ chalk painting sequence from the original film, and is just as boisterous and lively. The core of the sequence takes place at the “The Royal Doulton Music Hall,” where humans and cartoon animals alike gather together to enjoy an evening of music and entertainment. As Mary and the gang travel to the music hall in the back of a horse drawn carriage they sing about what a ‘dilly-dynamical simply ceramical’ place it is to a jaunty clip-clop rhythm. The verbal dexterity in the lyrics here is quite astonishing (Shaiman and Wittman somehow manage to rhyme the words mythical, mystical, logistical, and ‘sophistical’ in the space of less than a minute) and Mary is clearly quite excited about the prospect of going there herself – the growl in her voice as she sings ‘muuuuusic hall’ tickled my tail as much as it did the carthorse’s!

The highlight for me amongst all the songs is “A Cover is Not the Book,” a raucous, cheeky East End music hall number which tips more than its hat to period English singer-songwriters like Flanagan & Allen and Noel Gay. There is so much going on in this song. First of all, Blunt’s switch from her prim and proper Poppins voice to a much saucier Cockney accent at 0:37 is shocking but effortless and perfect. Secondly, Shaiman and Wittman clearly did a lot of research into Poppins lore for the lyrics, because the three ‘stories’ Mary and Jack tell are sourced from both book canon and English culture – Nellie Rubina is a human-sized wooden doll who runs “conversation shop” and appears in the sequel novels ‘Mary Poppins Comes Back’ and ‘Mary Poppins Opens the Door,’ Lady Hyacinth Macaw is based on the actual parrot which inspired the handle of Mary’s umbrella, and the Dirty Rascal is based on an old children’s playground chant. Even the sequence of ‘patter,’ which many will assume was written to allow Miranda to use his rap skills from Hamilton in a new setting, is actually based on the style of music hall artists like Stanley Holloway, who did this sort of thing on stage in the 1940s. There are so many lyrical and musical touches which make this song brilliant, from the London-specific knowledge that Charing Cross is the historical center for publishing, to the little drumbeat when Mary is describing Nellie Rubina’s lush green roots that verges on the obscene. Not only that, the whole point of the song is about people and things not being who they first appear to be – something which directly relates to the plot surrounding Colin Firth’s William Weatherall Wilkins character. The whole thing is so catchy and infectious, that I have been obsessed with it almost since the moment I first heard it.

The emotional high point of the songs is the ballad “The Place Where Lost Things Go,” which Mary sings to the Banks children to comfort them regarding the death of their mother. The song is simply gorgeous – quiet, intimate, warm – with lyrics that are sentimental without being schmaltzy, genuinely sincere, and as soothing as a lullaby. Shaiman does some clever things with the melody, linking the chord progressions of this song with those heard earlier in “A Conversation” to make them feel like musical siblings dealing with the same issues of loss and mourning, but he allows his orchestrations to be richer and more appealing here. The writing for strings and oboes is especially beautiful. There’s also another clever throwback to the Mary Poppins sequel novels here in the lyrics, which talk about ‘the man in the moon,’ who according to Travers is Mary’s uncle.

“Turning Turtle” is probably my least favorite song on the album, but there is still plenty here to enjoy. It’s a frantic, ditzy little piece with some unexpected Jewish inflections, performed in character with a thick accent by Meryl Streep as Topsy, Mary’s eccentric cousin who owns a nick-nack repair shop. I suspect that the Jewishness of the song is a subtle acknowledgement of the history of London’s Jewish community and their traditional involvement in watchmaking and pawn brokerage, but actually I think Shaiman might also have wanted to channel his inner Jerry Bock and write something that might feel at home in Fiddler on the Roof. The orchestrations have vaguely Eastern European textures – listen for the subtle and not-so-subtle cimbaloms, Klezmer clarinets, and gypsy fiddles – but are blended with toe-tapping big band swing phrases that are wonderfully vibrant.

“Trip a Little Light Fantastic” is the centerpiece song and dance sequence of the film, as Jack and his fellow leeries lead Mary and the Banks children out of a dense London fog with their lamps. It’s a song about optimism – finding your way when you are lost, both literally and figuratively – and the song’s title comes from an old phrase about dancing nimbly on your toes. This is another perfect example of Shaiman and Wittman’s penchant for double-meanings in the lyrics, where both dancing and the concept of light feature strongly. Lin-Manuel Miranda performs the lead vocal with a cheerful giggle in his intonation, while Shaiman’s sometimes almost militaristic rhythmic devices in the music allow the song to break for some sensational choreography. For me the only mis-step in the song is the part about ‘leerie-speak,’ which seems to be trying to explain the concept of Cockney rhyming slang to the audience, but they actually get it a bit wrong. Cockney slang is a complicated idea to do with word association, replacing one word in a sentence with another that is related to something that rhymes with it, but the way they present it here is not quite right and it bothers me a little. Other than this one issue, however, the song is a joyful triumph, and Miranda’s long held note in its last few seconds is his Hollywood moment.

There are a pair of reprises of “The Place Where Lost Things Go” and “Trip a Little Light Fantastic,” the first one sung by the children to their father, and the latter performed by Dick Van Dyke in his glorious on-screen cameo as the bank owner Mr Dawes Jr., before the finale in “Nowhere to Go But Up.” The lead vocal here is performed by Broadway legend Angela Lansbury as a lady selling balloons in the park opposite the Banks house on Cherry Tree Lane. The song is optimistic and uplifting, ending everything on a wonderfully positive and wholesome note. Yet again, the little things Shaiman and Wittman do in the details are what make the song. The statements of the Sherman melody from “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” at 1:05 and 4:38 are perfectly-placed Easter Eggs for the moments when Michael Banks lets go of his grief and remembers his childhood, flying kites with his father. The fairground calliope sound that runs through the entire song brings back the textural idea first heard in “Underneath the Lovely London Sky,” culminating in the moment when Miranda reprises the chorus of his song and falls in love with Jane. This song also marks the only appearances of Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Jeremy Swift, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, David Warner, and Jim Norton in the songs, ensuring that the entire cast gets to join in the fun at least once. The sense of joy and effortless charm that permeates the songs is just marvelous, and leaves you floating on air – just like the people in the film – and the conclusive reprise of “Underneath the Lovely London Sky” sends Mary Poppins off into the clouds with a final flourish.

Oh, yeah, there’s a score too!

As one would expect, Shaiman’s score is set firmly within the same sonic world as the songs, and uses thematic statements from the song melodies as character leitmotifs. Mary’s Theme is extrapolated from the six syllables in the title of “Can You Imagine That,” and is the cornerstone of the score. As I mentioned earlier it’s actually the very first thing you hear, at the very beginning of “Underneath the Lovely London Sky,” but thereafter it is heard prominently throughout numerous cues, most notably in the “Overture” and the “Theme from Mary Poppins Returns”. The “Overture” provides a whirligig overview of all the score’s main thematic ideas, jumping from Mary’s theme to the Lost Things theme, to the Light Fantastic Leerie theme, while also allowing for the first of many brief cameos from Sherman song melodies, in this instance “A Spoonful of Sugar” at 0:13. The subsequent “Theme from Mary Poppins Returns” is a slow, bold, but quite dramatic rendering of Mary’s theme for the full orchestra, full of wonderment and magic. Cleverly Shaiman uses Mary’s theme as a little leitmotif every time Mary does a bit of mischief, even within the songs (at 1:34 of “The Royal Doulton Music Hall” when she conjures the big top itself, or at 5:24 of “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” when she joins in the dance), which allows Mary’s presence to remain at the forefront of the entire project.

“Kite Takes Off” underscores the scene where Jack and little Georgie Banks chase his flyaway kite through the park, and then get caught up in the windstorm that heralds Mary’s majestic return from the clouds. Shaiman uses the melody from “Lovely London Sky” as a leitmotif for Jack for the first time here, and blends it with foreshadowing snippets from Mary’s theme, which gradually become grander and more sweeping as the prospect of Mary’s arrival grows nearer. This cue also contains the first of Shaiman’s action chase sequences, all of which are full of magic and movement. The orchestrations here actually sound quite similar to John Williams’s Harry Potter scores, with swirling string cascades and interjections from glockenspiel and celesta, which I like a lot, while the minor key string writing underpinned with heavier percussion and brass that begins at the 1:13 mark is also quite excellent. The subsequent “Mary Poppins Arrives” is a happy, but slightly pompous arrangement of Mary’s theme for the more comedic parts of the orchestra; the second magical statement of “A Spoonful of Sugar” as Mary breezily waltzes into the foyer of 17 Cherry Tree Lane, much to the utter shock of Michael and Jane, is delightful, as is the brief reprise of the melody from the song “A Perfect Nanny” – hopefully, she doesn’t smell like barley water, as per their original request.

“Magic Papers” features a brisk and business-like arrangement of Mary’s theme with a strong rhythmic undercurrent, and a brief piano-led snippet of “A Conversation” as a personal leitmotif for Michael, while the subsequent “Banks in the Bank” underscores the scene where Mary and the children visit their father at work. Cleverly, Shaiman uses snippets of the melody from the song “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank” as a recurring leitmotif for the bank in both these cues – you can hear it for the first time on imposing brass at 1:10 of “Magic Papers”. It’s also worth acknowledging Shaiman’s florid scherzo writing in “Banks in the Bank” which again has a strong John Williams flavor – some of the woodwind textures remind me especially of “Jim’s New Life” from Empire of the Sun, of all things.

“Into the Royal Doulton Bowl” is the first part of the animated Music Hall sequence, as Mary uses her powers to transport herself, Jack, and the children onto the surface of the ceramic bowl that sat on the shelf of the Banks family nursery for years. Shaiman first combines snippets of the “Royal Doulton Music Hall” song melody with Mary’s theme to capture the magic, and then heads off into a pretty and jaunty full statement of the Music Hall theme that is full of whimsical charm. “Rescuing Georgie” is the culmination of the Music Hall sequence, and accompanies the scene where Annabel and John Banks race off after their youngest brother Georgie, who in trying to retrieve his stolen toy giraffe has somehow become trapped in a speeding carriage driven by a wolf, a badger, and a weasel, all of whom have oddly familiar voices. This is the second of Shaiman’s terrific action sequences, and it’s much more serious and orchestrally dramatic than anything else in the score, full of flashy string writing, bold brass flourishes, rolling harp glissandi, and a percussion beat that mimics the hooves of galloping horses. Cleverly, Shaiman works in statements of the Music Hall theme and Jack’s theme, arranged as full-throated action music, which is quite wonderful.

With the Royal Doulton bowl having been broken in the carriage chase, Mary decides to see if her cousin Topsy can repair it, and “Off to Topsy’s” is the music that accompanies Mary, Jack, and the children as they make their way through London to her workshop. Shaiman arranges Mary’s theme as a sprightly and no-nonsense jig, all staccato strings and woodwinds, and cleverly combines it with a second statement of “A Perfect Nanny” arranged in a similar way (listen for it at the 0:09 mark); eventually, as the little group reaches Topsy’s workshop, Shaiman showcases a bombastic instrumental version of Topsy’s big band klezmer theme, replete with tapped snares and roaring muted trombones, which is quite wonderful.

“Chase Through the Bank” is the third action sequence, as the Banks children – having discovered bank manager William Weatherall Wilkins’s dastardly secret – try to escape so that they can tell Mary and Jack what’s going on. Again, the music is fast and fluid, filled with rousing string figures and brass fanfares, but it quickly changes and becomes moody and mysterious in “Lost in a Fog,” which makes use of haunting woodwinds, chimes, and even a subtle choir to create a slightly creepy atmosphere. Eventually, with time having run out, and with apparently all options exhausted, the Banks family prepare to move out of their beloved home, and “Goodbye Old Friend” plays as Michael stands in the empty hallway; sentimental statements of Jack’s theme and Mary’s theme play sequentially, tempered with a sense of rueful resignation. But – all is not lost! The film’s final 5-minute action sequence is the “Race to Big Ben,” as Jack and the leeries come up with an idea to thwart Wilkins’s plans and save the Banks family home which requires them to climb Elizabeth Tower and alter the clock face before Big Ben chimes midnight. This conclusive cue features more statements of Mary’s theme, the Light Fantastic Leerie theme, and even A Spoonful of Sugar, this time arranged as an action sequence with sparkling string runs, fulsome brass outbursts, choirs, tolling bells, and a relentless sense of energy and forward motion. It’s quite brilliant.

The “End Title Suite” wraps things up perfectly with more fulsomely-arranged song melodies, beginning with “Nowhere to Go But Up,” moving through some subtle allusions to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” another statement of Topsy’s theme, the Light Fantastic theme, and the Lost Things theme, before climaxing with an enormous rendition of Mary’s theme that is musical joyfulness personified.

That word – joy – keeps cropping up in my review, and I really can’t think of a better word to describe the whole experience of Mary Poppins Returns. I don’t want to get too political at this point, but the world is in such a dark and difficult place now on so many fronts, and Mary Poppins Returns is the perfect antidote to all that. It’s a score which doesn’t have a snarky or cynical bone in its body; there are no sly winks to the audience to let you know that it knows how old fashioned and possibly dated this all is. It wears its emotional heart firmly on its sleeve, unashamedly wallows in its sense of nostalgia, and invites us all to let out our inner child – that part of us that still believes in magic and playfulness, in talking umbrellas and dancing penguins, and in that place where good things happen to good people simply because they should.

It helps, too, that Shaiman and Wittman have poured every ounce of their craft and creativity into this, and turned what could easily have been a disaster into a masterpiece. Their loving acknowledgement of the legacy of the Sherman Brothers is pitched perfectly, the song melodies are beautiful and memorable, the lyrics are clever and insightful, and the frequent references to Mary Poppins literary canon are appropriate. Shaiman’s accompanying score is similarly outstanding, blending all the numerous song themes into a musical tapestry that tells a dramatic story through rich orchestrations and some fabulous action material. In fact, for both men, I would be inclined to say that Mary Poppins Returns is their career achievement to date, which is no mean feat considering that the pair were already just one vowel shy of achieving the EGOT. I can’t stress enough just how outstanding this entire thing is – so grab your kite, and allow yourself to be transported back to a more innocent time. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the score of the year.

Buy the Mary Poppins Returns soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Underneath the Lovely London Sky (performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda) (3:47)
• Overture (2:28)
• A Conversation (performed by Ben Whishaw) (2:42)
• Can You Imagine That? (performed by Emily Blunt and Company) (4:22)
• The Royal Doulton Music Hall (performed by Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Company) (3:01)
• Introducing Mary Poppins (performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt) (0:31)
• A Cover is Not the Book (performed by Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Company) (4:25)
• The Place Where Lost Things Go (performed by Emily Blunt) (3:43)
• Turning Turtle (performed by Meryl Streep and Company) (4:20)
• Trip a Little Light Fantastic (performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Blunt, and Company) (7:02)
• The Place Where Lost Things Go – Reprise (performed by Pixie Davies, Nathaniel Saleh, and Joel Dawson) (1:30)
• Trip a Little Light Fantastic – Reprise (performed by Dick Van Dyke and Company) (0:46)
• Nowhere to Go But Up (performed by Angela Lansbury and Company) (5:45)
• Underneath the Lovely London Sky – Reprise (performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda) (1:52)
• Theme from Mary Poppins Returns (1:38)
• Kite Takes Off (2:40)
• Mary Poppins Arrives (1:41)
• Magic Papers (1:33)
• Banks in the Bank (0:43)
• Into the Royal Doulton Bowl (1:58)
• Rescuing Georgie (4:01)
• Off to Topsy’s (2:53)
• Chase Through the Bank (1:11)
• Lost in a Fog (0:59)
• Goodbye Old Friend (2:32)
• Race to Big Ben (4:55)
• End Title Suite (5:12)

Running Time: 78 minutes 10 seconds

Walt Disney Music (2018)

Music composed by Marc Shaiman. Conducted by Gavin Greenaway. Orchestrations by Jeff Atmajian, Doug Besterman, Julian Kershaw and Jon Kull. Original Mary Poppins themes by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. Recorded and mixed by Andrew Dudman. Edited by Jennifer Dunnington. Album produced by Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman and Mike Higham.