Wicked, The Birmingham Hippodrome, 06 March 2024 until 07 April 2024.

4✩✩✩✩: David Gray & Paul Gray.

“An undeniable spectacle with a deep emotional well at its heart.”

Much of the interest in the story of Wicked lies in how it takes a very familiar narrative, the story of Dorothy in the MGM film ‘The Wizard of Oz’, and views it from a new and very unfamiliar perspective. In doing so, it reverses the moral certainties of the world of the fable and creates uncertainty and ambiguity.

This is a show of two halves. The first act is largely concerned with tropes commonly found in Hollywood teenage rom coms. Pretty, confident and vivacious Glinda (Sarah O’Connor) is popular. Withdrawn, green-skinned Elphaba (Laura Pick) is not. She is an outcast but in love with the handsome and charismatic Fiyero (Carl Mann). He, like-to-like, is initially drawn to Glinda – so far so ‘Clueless!’.

A more serious element is raised when we learn that intelligent talking animals, once a common feature of the society, are gradually being excluded and silenced to the point where they can no longer speak. Elphaba’s social exclusion suddenly takes on a more profound resonance.

There is a change of gear when Elphaba and Glinda, having formed an unlikely bond of friendship, travel to The Emerald City to see the Wizard. All is sinister and not what it seems. Elphaba is forced to flee. The second act is more overtly political, as she becomes a magical freedom fighter, using her power to defend the rights of the oppressed animal minority, and once again becoming a social pariah in the process.

It sounds flimsy on paper and one of the shows pitfalls is its reliance for much of its narrative impact on the audience being familiar and engaged with the Oz story. If you are not familiar with the source material, you might spend much of the first act wondering why you should care, and much of the second act could leave you feeling rather bewildered.

For a lot of the time the music is functional, in that it supports and moves the action on. But where it does reach for big emotional impact, it manages to pack a massive punch. On the whole, the lyrics are more impressive than the tunes. Action, lyrics, book, music and staging fuse beautifully in the finale scene of Act 1, culminating in the iconic song, ‘Defying Gravity’. The scene builds wonderfully to a spectacular climax, and one cannot help but regret that there is not more of this kind of integration in what has gone before.

Costumes are unfailingly imaginative and sumptuous. The clever motif of broken and dismantled machinery in the set design, cleverly comments on how the Wizard’s (Simeon Truby) artificial mechanical magic dominates the world of Oz, creating a dangerously populist political structure. Possibly, this motif also echoes ‘Futerismo’ an Italian fascist, surrealist art movement of the 1920s that worshiped mechanisation.

The show is perfectly cast, with each principal ideally fitted to character, and the singing is, without exception, off the scale in quality. Laura Pick in particular develops her character convincingly and has effortless vocal projection, control and a rich glossy tone.

The opening night was marred by a technical hitch that delayed curtain up by the better part of half an hour. This may have unsettled the cast, perhaps driving it to try a bit too hard? The big production numbers all felt a bit too big and lacked any sense of fun or lightness of touch.

That said, Wicked is an undeniable spectacle with a deep emotional well at its heart, and a story that has the courage to not always follow the Yellow Brick Road.

Cast

Glinda – Sarah O’Connor

Witch’s Father – James Gower-Smith

Witch’s Mother – Shoko Ito

Midwife – Julie Cloke

Elphaba – Laura Pick

Nessarose – Megan Gardiner

Boq – Daniel Hope

Madame Morrible – Donna Berlin

Doctor Dillamond & The Wizard – Simeon Truby

Fiyero – Carl Mann

Chistery – Nick Len

Creatives

Music & Lyrics – Stephen Swartz

Book – Winnie Holzman

Director – Joe Mantello

Scene Designer – Eugene Lee

Costumes – Susan Hilferty

Lighting – Kenneth Posner