The other day, my friend Michael Rubinoff gave me a copy of the London Cast Recording of the new West End musical Mary Poppins. It might be one of the first copies in North America: It's not currently available in outside the UK, but Michael was able to get a copy from the Dress Circle Musical Theatre Shop, which is an unbelievably cool online musical theater store in the UK. They specialize in Stage Musicals, Cabaret, Nostalgia, Soundtracks, Karaoke, Comedy, Big Bands. From the Dress Circle Web site:

Dress Circle, nestled between Drury Lane and Leicester Square, in the heart of London's West End, is the World's best on-line store for Show CDs, Videos, DVDs, Merchandise, Sheet Music, Books and Gifts. If we can't get it -- No one can!

I looked for a copy of Lionel Bart's Twang!, which has been buried deeper than a Pharoah, and guess what...it actually returned a result! Now, this is a compilation of songs from British musicals between 1950 and 1975, but still, where do you find any Twang! recordings? From the site:

The soprano Gabrielle Bell and pianist Rex Walford open a portfolio of neglected songs from British musicals, including Twang!!, Grab Me a Gondola, The Buccaneer, Lady at the Wheel, Chrysanthemum and others. Gabrielle Bell’s freshness brings a breath of spring to 20 songs from a golden age.

Anyway, back to Mary Poppins.

I must admit I was a bit skeptical of the whole business. After all it is yet another film-to-stage production project, and a classic film with songs ingrained in my brain since childhood! But I am happy to announce I really loved it! The voices are amazing, and Laura Michelle Kelly who plays Mary has that same smooth, effortless quality of Julie Andrews' voice. Bert, played by Gavin Lee, has a completely different sounding voice from Dick Van Dyke, but I still love it.

The original Sherman Brothers songs are all there with new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, who wrote the Olivier award-winning HONK!. Now I love HONK! (and so does my daughter), and I think their songs are, as Cameron Mackintosh says in the liner notes, a perfect complement to the Sherman Brothers' material.

Hearing those Sherman Brothers' songs again in these new orchestrations really emphasizes how truly brilliant they were and still are. The new songs don't stand out the way the old ones do, but still seem to fit seemlessly, holding the whole score together. I'm already starting to hum one of the new songs "Practically Perfect". That song was written on spec for Cameron Mackintosh by Stiles and Drewe in 1993 when they were first approached about writing the new material.

One small disappointment was "Feed the Birds". In the movie there is a great swelling instrumental interlude which always gave me chills. In the musical arrangement there are always voices singing and I don't get that same chill. Now I haven't seen the show so maybe they do it there at another time.

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to seeing the show when it hops the pond!

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