Still one of the most brilliant Disney family films ever to grace our screens, for decades this wonderful and magical film has brightened the lives of children all over the world.
Michael (Matthew Garber) and Jane Banks (Karen Dotrice) are the children of a strict banker father (David Tomlinson) and a suffragette mother (Glynis Johns). Due to the children's bad behaviour and antics, another of their many nannies has walked out. Their father prepares to look for a replacement, and the children, in a desperate attempt to have a nanny they actually want, write a letter to him, listing all the aspects that they would like in their dream nanny.
However when they show the letter to their father, he rips it up, throws it on the fire and tells the children he will pick the most appropriate nanny out of the ones he has requested to see. Naturally the nannies are all stick-in-the-muds, strict beyond belief.
However something magical happens - the children's torn-up letter is whisked up the chimney. Soon the queues of potential nannies outside the house are also whisked away, leaving only one - Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) - who has arrived by means of an umbrella.
On interviewing Mary, Mr Banks discovers she has obtained the torn letter and matches each of the children's demands, 100 percent. He doesn't care for her, but due to the amazing disappearance of all the other potential nannies, he has no option but to give her the job anyway.
Now the magic really begins as the children are taken on one incredible outing after another by their perfect nanny with the aid of local chimney sweep, Bert (Dick Van Dyke). The children experience fantastic adventures, such as floating around rooms due to laughing too hard, riding carousel horses through the countryside, jumping in and out of a chalk painting and visiting an animated world of penguin waiters.
As Mary Poppins helps the children explore the world around them, their father increasingly disapproves of her unconventional methods. Now, even more distant from his children, he will have to sort the problem out...
An all-time family classic.
Mary Poppins is a Film programme that first aired in 1964 and has been classified a U certificate.
