Wicked

On Friday I finished work in the early afternoon and took the train into London. It arrived at Kings Cross at half past 5 and I think took the tube to Victoria (bad idea at half past 5 but needs must). It was strange coming out of Victoria station and walking across to the Apollo Victoria. The outside of the theate has green neon lights on it now and a big 'Wicked' sign of course. I had arranged to meet Mark on the steps outside the box office at 6pm, by five past he still wasn't there, but looking up and down the road I saw Andy and Vicky (his techie students that he had given a lift from the college) standing by the stage door so I walked down and said hello. Andy told me that Mark had gone inside the theatre to say hello to some people so we waited a few minutes more before he decided to come out. Then we all went to Nandos and had some chicken for dinner.

After dinner we went back to the theatre, bought a programme and took our seats. Mark and I had seats G18 and G19 in the dress circle, which were about 1/3 of the way back, and just behind a horizontal aisle so we had a barrier in front of us instead of other seats - no need to worry about tall people! And I was against the side of the fire exit door and Mark was on the vertical aisle so it was a bit like having our own box. Andy and Vicky were nearer the back and over to the side.

The inside of the theatre is very shiny, all the seats are lovely plush red velvet now and all the inside of the theatre (the foyer etc as well as the auditorium) has been repainted in the original colours of sea green and cream. The stage had a curtain with a map of Oz on it, and on the pros there is a huge dragon (ooh). Oh, and behind us there were a couple of teenage girls who had obviously taken their happy pills because they spent the time before the show singing, and the time during the show whispering and giggling and screaming after each song. The one behind me screamed at the top of her voice when Idina Menzel first came on stage, it was really quite frightening.

I really enjoyed the show (despite the rest of the audience). I noticed a couple of changes for a UK audience from the Broadway show (eg 'fix your hair' to 'do your hair', 'at school' to 'as students'), and the dragon got more use (but then maybe we just noticed that because we were sitting in the circle here, whereas in NY we were sitting in the stalls and the dragon wasn't so visible. One thing I liked very much is that everyone used their own accents (except Nigel Planer, but the Wizard is the only character who has to be something specific, he had to be American). So Elphaba was American, Glinda was Australian, Nessarose was English etc. It does make some of the lines not rhyme properly but generally I thought that was great.

The cast were very good also. I can't fault Idina Menzel at all, she was sliiightly out on a couple of notes in her second-to-last big song, but overall her singing and acting were excellent. Helen Dallimore as Glinda was fantastic too and so was Adam Garcia as Fiyero. The only complaint I have about Miriam Margolyes as Madame Morrible was that she obviously Doesn't Sing and there were a few lines were it did need it. And everyone else was lovely.

So yes I enjoyed it, would recommend it, and would like to see it again (maybe next year with a different Elphaba). The main criticsm of the show seems to be that it's overblown, too big and too loud, but you know I like that kind of thing. The only bit I don't like is the very ending which was changed from the book and makes the whole thing a bit....less. But I try to ignore it.

So anyway we watched the show and it was good. Then the four of us met up outside the theatre and went to the stage door, because Damien (Mark's old boss when he was on Starlight and Bombay Dreams) had said he would show Andy and Vicky around after the show. And I got to go too, of course. =) The stage door was absolutely mad, they had crowd barriers up (!) and there were tonnes of people with cameras and programmes etc. So we walked past all that and went inside (am obviously a bit shallow because I found it quite thrilling) and waited for Damien.

Damien took us down into the theatre and we walked across the stage. All the set pieces are stored on winches in the wings so we had a look at those and at the lights at the side and back of the stage. Then he showed us the giant head that the Wizard used (pic of it on stage):



(for scale, that is a person crouching on top of it, it's probably about 10 feet tall)

He told us a bit about how it worked and said that the power connection it uses had blown up three times during previews. After that he showed us the smoke machines and Andy and Vicky asked intelligent questions about how they worked while I looked at the costumes on the other side of the room. Mark was amused to spot a big pile of monkey wings. Then back up into the auditorium to see the lighting desk (which is in the old standing section - there's still the sign behind the desk saying 'Standing Enclosure 20 Persons'). And after that we went back out of the stage door past the screaming hordes and drove home.

I hope someone read all that!

Today Mark got up at 6:30am to watch the Chinese Grand Prix and I stayed in bed. We were going to go for a walk down to the river Flit with afternoon but it is bucketing it down so I think we'll stay in somehow.

Not much else to report....next weekend is also exciting because I am going to see Mamma Mia! with Mum and Jen. So there is another musical theatre report in everyone's future which I'm sure you're all very excited about.