If Zizi Strallen had big shoes to fill when taking the title role in the stage musical Mary Poppins, it was at least the most familiar of footwear.
When the British actress joined the cast of the smash-hit stage show – which is running throughout this month at Dubai Opera – she was following in the footsteps of elder sister Scarlett’s award-winning stint playing Poppins on Broadway and in the West End.
“That was my only reservation,” says Strallen. “When a member of your family has already played a role, all these things cross your mind: ‘we’re going to be really compared to each other’. This hasn’t been the case at all and I’m so glad I didn’t let that get in the way. The team in the show just let me go at in my own way.
“My sister is so cool in that way – she kind of thought, if there’s anyone I want to do Mary Poppins, it’s my sister. She just tried to give me some advice – keep breathing, pace yourself through it, but absolutely no sense of ‘I can do it better than you’.”
That was two years ago, at which time Strallen, now 26 years old, had already clocked credits in the musicals Cats, Merrily We Roll Along and Rock of Ages. When she landed the Mary Poppins role she was appearing in modern-dance production The Car Man by Matthew Bourne, the ballet maverick who is also co-director and co- choreographer of Poppins.
“He’s just the most incredible director,” says Strallen. “He does so much work on your character, and there’s so much acting work that goes into his dance pieces – I always say he should direct a film or a play because he’s so incredible in that way.”
The final green light for Strallen's appointment probably came from producer Cameron Mackintosh, the impresario credited with reviving the musical in the modern era with a string of record-breaking hits, including Les Misérables, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
Strallen remembers the night Mackintosh came to see her in The Car Man – in which she played a darker role as a streetwise murderer, Lana, and for which she won Outstanding Female Performance (Modern) at the National Dance Awards. After two years of the magic and whimsy of Mary, does she ever think of moving on to more serious, dramatic roles?
“It’s one of those roles I’d like to jump in and out of – going to do something completely different and coming back to Mary one day,” she says. “I was lucky enough to start playing Mary at 24, which is quite young, and it’s definitely one of those roles you could play at 30 or 35 – and it’s something which I hope is going to stay in my life for a long time.”
For now, Strallen remains fully immersed in bringing Poppins to life. As a child, she devoured the books by P L Travers on which the musical is based and which were the inspiration for the classic 1964 Disney movie starring Julie Andrews, but she is proud of reinterpreting the character for a 21st-century audience.
“Personally I think she’s a lot cheekier and a bit more sarcastic than most people would think,” says Strallen.
“When you’re a child you have this thing in your head that Mary Poppins is like this sugary sweet person. She is, but if you go back and watch the film as an adult, you see she has the best comebacks, so fast and witty – that’s my favourite thing about her, definitely.”
• Mary Poppins is at Dubai Opera until May 25. For show times and tickets, from Dh250, visit www.dubaiopera.com
rgarratt@thenational.ae