Hannah Millbank takes her youngest to enjoy a wickedly good West End performance of Wicked
From the moment Wicked opens, the stage bursts with intriguing characters, incredible costumes, immense singing voices and an interesting story line that delves into the background of the witches and questions everything we thought we knew about the Wizard of Oz.
But this isn’t just a re-telling of a childhood classic, following Dorothy as she skips down the yellow brick road towards the mesmerising Emerald City and ultimately culminating in an age-old tale of good versus evil. The show challenges our assumptions, questions the values we place most significance on and forces us to re-evaluate our judgement of the poor old Wicked Witch of the West.
It turns out that ‘Eflie’ (as the Wicked Witch is fondly called by her unlikely best friend, Glynda the Good) has a back story. And as with every good back story, all is not as it seems. Elfie is not, in fact, the wicked witch that we all assume she is. In fact, by the end of the evening, the audience is left with an uncomfortable feeling of unease at always backing the apparently ‘good’ side.
Early on, Glynda’s apparent ‘goodness’ comes under question as, surrounded by insincere friends, she does everything she can to protect her popularity. The innocence of youth is highlighted here, as she doesn’t fully understand the damage her actions are causing.
So, when her unexpected and very unlikely friendship with the green-skinned misfit ‘Eflie’ develops, we’re given a fascinating insight into how true friendships are formed.
As the story unfolds, the Ozian society builds a story around Elfie, painting her as the ‘bad guy’ and route of all their problems – a narrative that is controlled and peddled by the Wizard of Oz and his allies. Much of this passed over the head of my seven-year-old, who still declared Glynda the Good as his favourite as we left – luckily Elfie came in a close second showing that the moral of the story hadn’t completely bypassed him.
There were a few tense moments that had my youngest reaching for my hand (the flying monkeys are as scary as those in the film), but overall the show was fun, dramatic and creative.
And for those of us familiar with the Wizard of Oz story, Wicked ties up some lose ends that we may not have known we needed tying up: why did the scarecrow end up with no brain, what caused the lion to be so cowardly, and how did a tinman lose his heart?
When the happily ever after arrives at the end of the show, it’s not the one we all expect, but it’s certainly the one that we all ended up rooting for.
For more information about Wicked at the Bristol Hippodrome and to book tickets, go to https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/wicked/bristol-hippodrome/