Mum's Monday: Wicked - The West End Show

Adapted from Gregory Maguire’s book of the same name

The Wednesday matinee 27^th July 2016 starring Emma Hatton as Elphaba and Mark Curry as the Wizard

Turning fantasy into reality since the opening night, 27^th September 2006 at the Apollo Victoria

When you think of a stage show you may consider that you have a stage, live actors and an audience, no green screen back drops and nowhere to hide, but this show shows how you can successfully turn a fantasy fiction land and characters into a live action stage show. With well-placed lights, theatrical smoke and hidden stage mechanics.

The songs are bold and require a strong voice and the lead Emma also needs a head for heights especially during the song ‘Defying Gravity’, Emma’s acting and singing throughout was exceptional.  as was the rest of the cast. The costumes and makeup were in keeping the original design but with their own added flair to create the dazzling spectacle that is the show.

Wicked is the prequel to the story and film ‘The Wizard of OZ’ where we thought that the Emerald city and the inhabitants were just the result of Dorothy’s dream having been knocked out by the tornado, but Wicked gives history to this world, and follows a girl named Elphaba from her birth until her death, through her childhood, teenage years, questioning good and evil through love and hate, then to her becoming the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’ when Dorothy throws water over her and she melts and dies.

This show questions whether Elphaba is really evil. As a result of some potion her mother took, Elphaba was born green. She was treated differently from the rest of her family and friends throughout her years in school, and adulthood. The result being she was thought of as a witch so she took what she was taught to be the person we see in the Wizard of OZ. When watching The Wizard of Oz after seeing this show, there’s a strong sense of understanding. The character we see on screen has a lot more depth than just being a Wicked Witch of the West. In the original story, when the house falls on the Wicked Witch of the East, Nessarose, Elphaba’s younger sister, the shoes should have rightly gone to Elphaba, but Glinder, the good witch, gives the shoes to Dorothy, and the Wicked Witch of the West obviously wants them back as she is entitled to them. After learning of Elphaba’s origin story, when watching the Wizard of Oz again, you can’t help but question whether she really is evil or just misjudged – all she wants are the shoes that were wrongfully given to someone outside her family.

We see how the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion came to be, but with a few changes such as the Tin Man’s origin story. Nessarose (Elphaba’s sister), her character is slightly different in the book to the character we see on the stage – in the book, she has no arms, but on the stage she’s in a wheelchair, however the show follows the book really well.

This show is well worth seeing. One of the songs in the show, Defying Gravity, which also defies reasoning on putting fantasy on a live stage. The show may only be 2 hours 45 minutes long, but you will remember it for a lot longer as being the fantasy spectacular it is.