A Spoonful of Funny Helps the Medicine Go Down: Nanny McPhee – 20th Anniversary Kids’ Club Screening

This commentary contains some spoilers and may be better read after the screenings.

At first glance, Nanny McPhee has a lot in common with that other legend of children’s cinema, Mary Poppins. Both are nannies in a romanticised past, arriving unexpectedly and dispelling a little magic to settle the bad manners and broken hearts in nice but somewhat dysfunctional families. As their respective films end, both nannies remark that they are no longer needed by the healed families and depart, presumably to spread a little domestic enchantment elsewhere. Made over forty years after Mary Poppins, it might be hard to see what Nanny McPhee offers that is new and different.

But look a little closer and it will become clear that Nanny McPhee is no Mary Poppins…

The redoubtable nanny arrives at the Browns’ home as the seven children are embroiled in a skirmish in the kitchen. Mrs Blatherwick, the family cook (played with eye-rolling glee by Imelda Staunton), has it in writing that the children will never be allowed in her kitchen. Indifferent to contracts, however, the kids have infiltrated Blatherwick’s holy of holies, have tied her to the kitchen table, and are engaged in a series of destructive outrages.

Now, the Banks children of Mary Poppins fame are a little untidy at moments, even a bit surly, but they’re fundamentally tame. The Brown children are different. The acts of rebellion which they stage are wild. They concoct chemical mixtures which bubble and ultimately detonate; they harass and torment those who work for the family; and they lie with ease. The scene into which Nanny McPhee first steps is one of startling anarchy. And when they fail even to acknowledge her presence, she does not belt out a catchy and educational Poppinsesque song to mesmerise the children into good behaviour. Shockingly and magnificently, she amplifies their anarchy. Drawing out her magic stick – which the children initially seem to fear may foreshadow corporal punishment – she taps it on the floor and unleashes mayhem. The sequence in which the children’s naughtiness is magically magnified – as they lose control of their bodies which move with helplessly mechanical speed towards greater and greater danger – is both funny and genuinely scary. Even though the film ultimately offers an all-too predictable happy ending, it is haunted by memories of the moment in which the children almost boiled the baby… Mary Poppins offers no glimpse of such horror.

The film is twenty years old this year and it still looks gorgeous. Some of its politics may seem a little outdated now: the gradual beautification of Nanny McPhee and the treatment of servants raise potentially awkward issues around gender and class. Nevertheless, in its celebration of what Jack Halberstam calls ‘the wondrous anarchy of childhood’, the film remains marvellously naughty. These children are not taught to be good citizens; they are simply taught to use their mischief and their talent for hooliganism against the right opponents. Ultimately, it is mayhem that Nanny McPhee serves up in spoonfuls – and it is quite delicious.

2005

Directed by Kirk Jones

Written by Emma Thompson

Based on the stories by Christianna Brand

Emma Thompson (Nanny McPhee)

Colin Firth (Cedric Brown)

Thomas Sangster (Simon Brown)

Kelly Macdonald (Evangeline)

Angela Lansbury (Great-Aunt Lady Adelaide Stitch)

Celia Imrie (Mrs. Selma Quickly)

Imelda Staunton (Mrs. Blatherwick)

Nanny McPhee Quiz

1. Nanny Whetstone leaves the house screaming because she thinks that the children have done what?

1. Blown up the cook
2. Eaten the baby
3. Shaved the donkey

2. Mrs Blatherwick, the family’s cook, says that there will be what in August before this family’s straightened out?

1. Snow
2. Ice
3. Christmas

3. What surprising thing happens when the children first say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Nanny McPhee?

1. Her walking stick glows
2. Her hat spins round and round
3. Her warts disappear

4. Who does Aunt Adelaide mistake at first for one of Mr Brown’s daughters?

1. A pig
2. A chicken
3. A donkey

5. Who goes to live with Aunt Adelaide?

1. Evangeline
2. Lily Brown
3. Chrissie Brown

6. Who does Mrs Quickly dye to match her wedding outfit?

1. Two lambs
2. Two doves
3. Two of the children

7. What does Mrs Quickly snap to show the children that she is now in charge of the household?

1. Mrs Blatherwick’s rolling pin
2. Aggie’s rattle
3. Nanny McPhee’s walking stick

8. How do the children disrupt the wedding between Mr Brown and Mrs Quickly?

1. They make fart noises
2. They make braying sounds like donkeys
3. They make buzzing sounds like bees

The answers are available at the LOCO stall in the cinema foyer after the screening. All correct answers get a treat!