Wicked was Wicked! (Wicked The Musical)

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	Wicked The Musical
Date:	19/05/08 (274 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great singing, good story, good message

Disadvantages: None

Are we born Wicked, have bad people been Wicked all their lives or are they just a product of their upbringing and the circumstances put upon them?

This past weekend I went to see the musical Wicked with my husband. The show is being played at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, London. The nearest tube stop to this theatre is Victoria. If you are planning to go soon do
check the tube dates/times as the Victoria lined is currently beingworked on over the weekends so it was shut and we had to use an alternative line to get there. The theatre itself is a Grade II listed building which first opened in 1931 as a cinema and then has been
running as a theatre since 1981.

The story is based on the best-selling novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, a re-imagining of L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the
perspective of the witches of the Land of Oz.

In my opinion it really focuses on the beginning statement of this review. It tells the story of The Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba and her relationship/friendship with the Good Witch, Glinda. What happened before Dorothy got to Oz and why was the Wicked Witch of the West so
bad? There are lots of references to the Wizard of Oz in this musical and it is quite funny to spot them and very clever to see how they have interweaved certain points into this story.

Glinda and Elphba are the main characters and feature in most of the musical. The actress who played Elphba was fantastic, she had probably most of the songs and a wonderful singing voice. Glinda in my opinion
was a bit too squeaky but I think this is also part of the character, playing a squeaky, annoyingly good witch.

The rest of the cast is not very big. They have a number of backing dancers to set the scenes and then there is the Wizard of Oz, the headmistress of the school, Fiyero - the hero, Elphaba sister and various other small parts.

The first act lasted for approximately an hour and a half and the second act was about an hour so not too long. I definitely liked the second act more than the first act. In the first act it was a bit confusing I think at the beginning to get the point they were trying to make and what
story they were actually telling but in the second act everything came together and you could really figure out and understand the message.

The stage was well set. They had a big mechanical dragon/monkey at the top of the stage that moved at various points during the act and the Wizard of Oz's alter ego was portrayed very well and was scary in fact.

To me this was not your typical musical for a London stage such as Les Mis or Cats, etc. In parts it was very Disney-esque, ie quite theatrical and make believe but that's not to say it was bad, just different.

If you want more information on the show I would suggest you visit the website which can be found at http://www.wickedthemusical.co.uk/. I bought my tickets through this website using Ticketmaster and I would
always recommend using the official site as other websites can rip you off. The tickets range from £15 to £60 I believe. I bought £20 and we were in the upper circle but still had a really good view of the stage.

One I would recommend!

Summary: The story of Oz as told by the Witches!