ACCESS ALL AREAS with Zizi Strallen ✨ The last couple of months I've seen Mary Poppins a couple of times and I knew that following Zizi around would be interesting as she's on stage for almost the entire show, but being there we realised there was actually only 1 proper moment where we could chat and where she has a break and that was the interval haha. Zizi has played Mary Poppins for a couple of years now, she opened the UK tour and then opened the show in London. And for the people who don't know it... her sister played Mary Poppins when it first opened in London. How cool!! As soon as the show started I barely saw Zizi anymore, but the stage manager made a proper list with her entrances, exits and where she had her costume changes. There is one costume change (during 'Jolly Holiday') which is around 20 seconds and she has 3 people helping her. She then goes on for another 4 minutes, finishes the song, comes back off and changes into another costume in 20 seconds. Everytime when she came off stage and had a couple of spare seconds she found a mirror and checked her lipstick. I'm sure she checked it more than 10 times throughout the show. A big part of the set is the family house where a lot of scenes are happening and at the back of the house there is a tiny space built where Zizi can retouch her make-up after 'Step In Time'. The show is full of magic tricks but personally I think the most special thing is when she flies over the audience and I've always wondered what it looked like up there after her flight. As soon as she's at the end of her flight at the top of the theatre, she has to crawl through a little gap and comes backstage, she then has to run a million stairs downstairs which leads her back into the wings. There she has a costume change and then has to run on for the bows + do a megamix? No words.