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[title]From her first appearance in the eponymous 1934 novel to her latest incarnation on the Melbourne stage, magical nanny Mary Poppins has delighted audiences around the world and across multiple generations. Whether you first encountered her as played by Julie Andrews in the 1964 Walt Disney film, or by Emily Blunt in its 2018 sequel, it’s a hard heart that isn’t charmed by the umbrella-wielding governess. Indeed, there have been so many adaptations of PL Travers’ beloved character that she’s hard to keep track of, which is why we’ve assembled this handy timeline. It begins with an unexpected Australian connection…
1899 – Author PL Travers is born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, Queensland. Writing poetry as a child, she goes on to work extensively as an actress, for which she adopts the stage name PL Travers. This would later serve as her pen name.
1924 – Travers moves to England. She only returns to Australia once in her life, in the 1960s.
1934 – Mary Poppins is published. Although the character first appeared in the 1924 short story ‘Mary Poppins and the Match Man’, it wasn’t until the release of the eponymous novel that the magical nanny found widespread fame. An instant success, it spawned seven sequels, the last published in 1988.
1964 – Disney’s Mary Poppins movie is released. Walt Disney’s children implored him to make the movie, but it took over 20 years for Disney to convince Travers to sell the film rights to her books. Starring Julie Andrews as Mary, and Dick Van Dyke as cockney Bert, it became the highest grossing film of the year, and the biggest Disney success to date.
1984 – Mary Poppins, Goodbye, a two-part Russian adaptation, airs on the USSR’s Gosteleradio. Starring Natalya Andreychenko as Mary and set in 1980s London, it’s a loose take on the material that infuses the whimsy with strong anti-capitalist themes, as you would expect of 1980s Soviet cinema.
1996 – PL Travers dies at the age of 96. Although she was dissatisfied with the Disney film, opining that it softened the title character too much, the film’s success set her up for life and she died a wealthy woman.
1997 – The Simpsons episode 'Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious' airs, featuring a nanny, Shary Bobbins (voiced by Maggie Roswell). Having been parodied by The Simpsons, Poppins’ place in the modern pop culture pantheon is cemented.
2004 – Mary Poppins the Musical debuts in London’s West End. Producer Cameron Mackintosh only secured the rights by promising the Travers estate an all-English writing team and that absolutely no one from the 1964 film would be involved. Laura Michelle Kelly would go on to win an Olivier Award for her role as Mary, and the hugely successful original production would run for three years and spawn countless revivals.
2004 – Mary Poppins is adapted for the radio by Hazel Marshal for BBC Radio 4. Starring Juliet Stevenson as Mary, the hour-long production draws on several of the books for inspiration, forging a story both familiar and new. You can listen to it here.
2010 – The first Australian production of Mary Poppins the Musical opens at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne with a cast including Debra Byrne, Marina Prior, Judi Connelli and Verity Hunt-Ballard as Mary.
2013 – Disney releases Saving Mr Banks, a fictionalised account of the production of their Mary Poppins. Directed by John Lee Hancock and starring Emma Thompson as PL Travers and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, it’s a crowd-pleasing delight, earning strong reviews and earning over $117 million at the global box office.
2018 – Disney releases Mary Poppins Returns, a legacy sequel to their original 1964 film. Starring Emily Blunt as Mary, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack, a former apprentice to Dick Van Dyke’s Bert, and Ben Whishaw as Mary’s former charge George, now grown with children and problems of his own, it grosses almost $350 million and is acclaimed as a worthy successor to the original.
2022 – A revived production of the musical opens in Sydney starring Stefanie Jones as Mary and Jack Chambers as Bert. It plays for five months before moving to Brisbane’s QPAC.
2023 – Mary Poppins the Musical will return to Her Majesty’s Theatre Melbourne from January 29. Tickets are on sale now.