For more than 60 years, audiences have been revelling in a spoonful of sugar, dancing penguins and Dick Van Dyke’s highly questionable Cockney accent in the joyful classic, Mary Poppins .

But while the film may have gone on to become one of the most beloved family films of all time, its origin story is far from supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. In fact, production on the 1964 classic was so riddled with issues – not least the fact that the author of the books on which the film was based hated the casting of Van Dyke as loveable chimneysweep Bert – that it is amazing the film ever got made at all.

The wildly popular story about a magical nanny who arrives in early 1900s London to entertain young Jane and Michael Banks – and remind their parents of the things that make life living

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