Designs on Dame Julie

On Raftery's Hill, which transfers from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin to the Royal Court tomorrow, is a new play by young Irish-woman Marina Carr. It is a torridly depressing piece set in a midland bog and designed to look that way. The designer's name won't ring much of a bell with British theatregoers. However, it's worth glancing at his list of credits in the programme.

Tony Walton designed the original Broadway productions of Chicago, Valmouth and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He is the designer of choice for any number of eminent directors in theatre and film, including Bob Fosse, Jerry Zaks, Mike Nichols and Sidney Lumet. He did The Boyfriend, All That Jazz and Murder on the Orient Express. When the Cripple of Inishmaan, Ashes to Ashes and Death and the Maiden went to New York, the designs were by Walton. The list goes on and on.

But the one piece of work that everyone will recognise is the prim Edwardian uniform, brolly, hat and sensible boots, worn by Hollywood's most famous nanny.

Walton designed the costumes for Mary Poppins. But not only did he dress Julie Andrews; he was the person who got to undress her. At the very height of her fame, when she played most of the roles that earned her her dame-hood last month, Walton was Mr Andrews.

He can' t quite remember when they married. "Fifty-eight or '59," he thinks. "It was just after I designed Valmouth, when Julie was doing My Fair Lady." The marriage was annulled in 1968, a couple of years after they had gone their separate ways. The marriage failed partly because of the time spent apart. "I was, perhaps stupidly, trying to keep some sort of identity of my own cooking and not just dissolve into the Mr Andrews syndrome," says Walton, who has lived in New York for most of his working life and has been in a more successful relationship for more than 30 years.

In fact he didn't mind being called Mr Andrews "except once in some little dinner party speech in Alderney, where we had a home. And I completely lost it. I went ballistic. The poor bugger came round the next day with handfuls of flowers. He was abject, and I behaved completed inappropriately."

Walton is, of course, a thoroughly nice man and we all know how nice Dame Julie is: so it's no wonder that they still get on. I ask Walton what his ex thought of being made a dame. "I think it turned out to be quite surprisingly pleasurable for her, despite the thunderous presence of Miss Liz. [Elizabeth Taylor became a dame at the same Buckingham Palace ceremony.] Julie would always be happy to be slightly thrown into the shadow. Her mum used to be really upset with her that she would always try to stay in the shadow even at the peak of My Fair Lady. So once in a blue moon she would put on something a little tasty and go out and make her presence known and her mother would immediately say, 'Who the **** do you think you are, you little tart?'"

Andrews and Walton are still working together, though not in the theatre or film this time, but on two children's books about Dumpy the Dump Truck. Andrews is writing the words with their daughter Emma (who started and runs a theatre in Long Island); Walton has done the pictures. They had their first collaboration on a children's book when they were children themselves. She showed him some stories she had written about musical instruments. "In an effort to make an impression I illustrated them. One of them was published in a newspaper."

They met when she was 11 and he was 12. At the time she was playing the egg in Humpty Dumpty in the West End. Walton and his brother went one night. She was on the same train home. "My brother and I would sidle down the corridor and peer into her compartment. We did a coin-rolling trick as an excuse to sidle. To our surprise, we got out at the same platform at Walton-on-Thames. I asked where she lived and she said, 'Where do you live?' I told her. She said, 'Well, I live on the other side of the track.'"

Throughout their courtship and marriage they tried not to work together. He designed The Julie Andrews Show for the BBC in 1959, but when Walt Disney offered her the role of Mary Poppins, she prevaricated because she was still holding out for the lead in the film version of My Fair Lady (which she didn't get). "Although she thought it was an incredibly long shot her agents were encouraging her to believe that she might have a chance of doing it, so she couldn't say yes. I think as an inducement to get her to come to Los Angeles he said, 'I need an English designer anyway and I would love Tony to be the visual person on this.' It was a very seductive attack.

"I hadn't worked in film and I was a terrible theatre snob. I used to get up in the wee wee hours and design The Love of Three Oranges for Sadler's Wells and The Rape of Lucretia for Britten's English Opera Group and then go to the studio and mail them off from the Disney post office and think that's my work for the day. Then I'd treat the place as an exotic candy factory. I actually regret it now. I could have learned so much more if I'd really paid attention."

?On Raftery's Hill is at the Royal Court 29 June-22 July. Box office: 020 7565 5000.