I have been wanting to see Wicked for some time now but for whatever reason had never made the trip to London for it, so I was very glad to get to see the touring show when it came to Bristol.
Stephen Schwartz's musical looks at the back-story of the witches we know from the Wizard of Oz film, or one of Frank Baum's 14 Oz books! Glinda (the good witch played by Emily Tierney) and Elphaba (the wicked witch played by Ashleigh Gray) meet at school, become friends, compete for the love of Fiyero (Samuel Edwards) and find that all is not well in the Land of Oz. Their attempts to improve things make enemies of the powers of the land who arrange a little "accident" to trap and destroy Elphaba. Plenty of twists (especially at the end) and turns in this plot ...
There is a lot of humour in the show and many references to the film both in the tale itself and the dialogue. In fact it meshes with the film extremely well, filling in some gaps, making re-interpretations of much of what we see and giving depth to the characters (as Fiyero says, "I am deeply shallow"). For all that, it did not quite fully engage, well, not with me, the audience were very enthusiastic and I bow to their greater enjoyment. I had a great time nonetheless ... perhaps my expectations had been set a little high by reports from previous audience members.
The cast and chorus were full of energy and bite - I particularly enjoyed Marilyn Cutts as Madame Morrible and Steven Pinder's Wizard (and his mechanical alter-ego!) ... credible within the world created for us on stage.
Costume, set and lighting are brilliant (I wanted the dragon to do more!) and the sound effects were great though the amplified dialogue was sometimes a little muddy. I was not as taken with the "defying gravity" scene/effect as I had hoped to be ... I have seen better flying effects and if its the broomstick that has the power then please don't wave it around and hold it over your head ;-)
P.S. I would wear pretty well anything from the Emerald City clothing store, I think the costumes are brilliant - just my style
P.P.S. Thank you cast and production for taking ONE bow and not having a disco-mix. That's great and might have something to do with the fact that Ashleigh Gray must be completely exhausted after the performance!
P.P.P.S. This is the first time I have been to the Hippodrome since ATG introduced their ordertorium service - the ability to order drinks and snacks to be delivered to your seat before the show or at the interval. Ordering can be at the seat (raise the order form and wait) or via an app .... brilliant idea!
