Last night I went along to see the one of the latest musicals to arrive in London – Wicked at the Apollo theatre in Victoria. Based on the characters and world set by Lyman Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz, this musical tells the alternative story of how the Wicked Witch of the West became the person that the movie portrayed her as. The story does well to link in numerous elements from this classic movie, and the writers did well to fill the script with a huge number of one-liners from the movie.

The costumes and set are richly colourful and almost excessively over the top. In the first half alone, I’m sure there would have been at least fifteen different set of costume changes, and with many of them very decent replicas of what you might have seen in the original. I thought the costumes of the characters in the Emerald city were probably the most elaborate and most suitable, though all of the costumes throughout were spectacular.

I thought the biggest thing that let this musical down was its songs. Although this is a new musical compared to many in London’s West End, I thought many of the songs were a bit too cliché (the numerous key changes, the couple singing harmoniously, and the loud top note at the end) but didn’t really have anything to make it very memorable on their own. I personally would have been happier if this musical was just a play since the script writers are clearly clever people.

All of the cast did an amazing job of playing their characters and the original lead, Idina Menzel playing Elphaba (the wicked witch) definitely deserved to win her 2004 Tony Award for her role. The current cast even includes the Antipodean movie actor, Adam Garcia of Coyote Ugly fame who I didn’t recognise until my sister pointed him out.

Overall I thought the musical was innovative and fun but it’s a bit hard to justify the top priced premium circle/stall seats. The story, script, costumes and set are amazing but the music was a bit disappointing.

Thekua.com Rating: 8 out of 10