Petula Travellers

Our Most recent “Petula Adventure”!

Our last, or more positively, our most recent “Petula Adventure” was in November of 2019 in London where Petula had several weeks earlier begun her role as the Bird Woman in Mary Poppins!

A week in London is a treasure in itself in my view. Over the years we have had the fortune of visiting the city on quite a few occasions –most times, in one way or another, connected to our discovery of the joy of travelling to see Petula perform and planning our vacations around those performances.

 We had decided in November, 2019 that we wanted to see Petula in her role as the Bird Woman In Mary Poppins. We considered waiting until the following March or April because we thought it might be nicer to visit London in the spring –the following spring, as in 2020!! We, of course, had no way of knowing then what the spring of 2020 had in store for us, but not willing to chance that Petula’s run in Mary Poppins might not continue into the spring, we set off for London in the middle of November.

There’s nothing quite like the buzz of London’s West End. I love the sense of anticipation and excitement as people flock to the theatre. My first taste of that magic was way back in the summer of 1987, when I was lucky enough to see Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, and Chess in the early days of their historic runs. Every single time I return, I’m filled with that same initial wonder and thrill, a feeling that never fades for me.

My husband and I have been Petula Clark fans since the early days of our courting and we have loved seeing her in concert more times and in more places than we can count, but we have only seen her perform in two musical theatre shows –both in London, –in 1996 in Sunset Boulevard and in 2019 in Mary Poppins!! Although she had the starring role in the former , seeing her as the Bird Woman in Mary Poppins was every bit as wondrous. Her ability to singularly engage an audience has certainly not waned over the years. “Feed the Birds”, her only solo in the show was impeccable and spell-binding, and the audience responded so  enthusiastically. 

We saw Mary Poppins twice, first on Saturday evening Nov.16 and again on Monday  evening Nov.18. For the Monday night performance we had managed to get some premium Stalls seats. Of course, there was a caveat, that night the cast of Mary Poppins, including Petula, were attending the Royal Variety Performance  before the scheduled show time.

We wondered if Petula would perform at the theatre after having already performed  in the presence of royalty that evening. It would have been perfectly understandable had she skipped the theatre performance. But to our joy—she did both!!  Not only that, she took time after the show at the stage door to talk with her fans, including us . We talked about her performance, about our visit to London and our previous encounters. It is quite remarkable how kind Petula always is to her fans,  probably part of  the reason for the loyalty and  longevity of her fan base.

Of course, as much as the highlight of our trip was our Petula encounter, there is no denying that “London is London”, and there was so much more during that trip, and so many great shows– a chance to see Hamilton, Tina the Musical and The Play that Goes Wrong–a tour of Kensington Palace and the Winston Churchill War Room—all of it because in 1965 Petula Clark sang “Downtown” and we were hooked!!