Mary Poppins Returns. Well, thank God for that.

We can all use a bit of magic in our lives and the release of the Mary Poppins reboot, which sees the redoubtable nanny returning with her umbrella this Christmas in the new form of Emily Blunt is exactly the spoonful of sugar we need to help the medicine go down in these depressing times.

As diehard fans will remember, Mary only comes when she is needed to look after the Banks children, and she is needed to look after the Banks children most of all when she is sorely needed by the Banks parents.

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Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw), now grown up, is still close to his sister Jane, (Emily Mortimer), but his wife has died and left him to bring up three children meaning the time is right for Mary to reappear.

It takes about a second of Emily Blunt to make us not miss Julie Andrews, but for anyone suffering withdrawl symptoms for the original cast, be assured that Dick Van Dyke will be popping up, although possibly not dancing across the rooftops at the age of 92. (He does manage a bit of a shuffle though, by the looks of it).

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Either way, the cast, which includes Julie Walters and Meryl Streep, looks, like Mary Poppins herself, 'practically perfect in every way'.

The only shame is that we have to wait until December to see this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious thing.

I'm off to fly a kite in the meantime, to see if Mary Poppins will fly on down to me.