Traditionally new musicals used to open out of Town before they came to London or Broadway. Nowadays it rarely happens either for economic reasons or because the show is not a draw until it has been the latest "smash hit" in town. With Mary Poppins we felt we would attract an audience for a pre London run and very much welcomed the chance of bringing the show to life at the Bristol Hippodrome. Bristol audiences have always been tremendously supportive of musicals and when I was at school in Bath I remember seeing many great productions there. In 1954 one famous Bristol musical SALAD DAYS (which was also concerned with magical happenings in a London Park) was fated to inspire me at the age of eight to become a Producer of musicals. I never dreamt that 50 years later I would have the chance to bring Pamela's stories to the stage. It wouldn't have happened without the support of the Trustees of the Travers' Estate and Michael Eisner and the hugely pleasurable collaboration with Tom Schumacher who is the embodiment of Mary Poppins dictum that "anything can happen if you let it."
When Pamela was a little girl living in rural Queensland, Australia, she was an avid reader of fairy stories from the family's collection of books, her favourites being by the Brothers Grimm. So much so that she called all fairy stories 'Grims' and it became the family nickname for story telling. Putting Pamela's own stories on stage nearly a hundred years later has been anything but grim. We've all had the most terrific and exhilarating time. On the day Richard first started putting the rehearsed scenes together I heard him exclaim, "This is a real tonic" - I like to think Pamela Travers would have thought so too.