What Is The Secret Of The Mary Poppins Agenda?

Seeded through series four of Doctor Who are odd little references to Mary Poppins. Some are hidden and some are obvious. What can they mean? Join Shouting Into A Well as it seeks the truth!

Partners In Crime: A nanny flies above the streets of London. Surely it can't get any more obvious than this?



The Fires Of Pompeii: Yes it can. "Positions!" shouts Caecilius ("positus!" clamo Caecilius) as an earthquake shakes Pompeii. Just like the Banks' family in Mary Poppins when their neighbour Admiral Boom fires his cannon..


Planet Of The Ood: A man with a cockney accent and a women are sung to by nattily dressed characters who live in a land of snow and ice. Does that remind you of anything?



The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poisoned Sky: A reference to the song Let's Go Fly A Kite. “Up through the ATMOSphere/Up where the air is clear ” and indeed, at the end of the story the poisoned sky is clear once again.

The Doctor's Daughter: Just like Mr Banks, the Doctor learns that to grow close to his child he must spend more time with her.

The Unicorn And The Wasp: Pamela L. Travers, author (like Agetha Christie, we're literally down the rabbit hole here, people) of the Mary Poppins books wrote a book called What The Bee Knows. A wasp is basically an angry bee and a running theme through this series is the disappearance of the bees; who know that the Earth is going to vanish.

Silence In The Library/Forest of the Dead: It's set in a library, WHICH IS WHERE YOU WOULD EXPECT TO FIND THE MARY POPPINS BOOKS.


Midnight: The Doctor refers to himself as “very clever”, why not just go the whole hog and describe him as “practically perfect in every way”. Also, in the book Mary Poppins Opens the Door(1943) Mary stays “till the door opens", just like the spooky echoing creature.

Turn Left: Donna's life is a series of miserable events until a mysterious lady, who appears and disappears like magic, enters her world.



The Stolen Earth/Journey's End: In a deleted scene missing from the DVDs the Doctor and Davros have a tea party on the ceiling.



How far does this conspiracy go? Who can say. Or dare to guess. It's rumoured that decoding these references could reveal a plot of Dan Brownian motions, or at least uncover the location of a jewelled golden Hare valued at £5000. Are you up to the challenge?