"There's no 'practically' about it, 'Mary Poppins' at the Bristol Hippodrome is completely and utterly perfect," said Ellie Kendall in Bristol Live. Two decades since its worldwide debut on "this very stage", Cameron Mackintosh's musical adaptation of P.L. Travers' book and the 1964 Disney film is back.
There's plenty that is "Christmas-pertinent" about the production, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. This is a "fable about a careworn city banker who redemptively discovers the value of putting humanity first and remembers that the most precious commodity is his family". But the show also has a "year-round medicinal benefit", with its "irresistible" invitation to "throw cares aside and reclaim your inner child".
Bob Crowley's sets are "beautiful to behold" – expect "smoking chimneys, picture-book flourishes and splashes of hallucinogenic colour". And while it's a "slightly different beast" from the film, the production has the added benefit of providing "real-time thrills".
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