REVIEW: Wicked (Fifty-five million stars)

If I am honest, I can’t stand musicals. The students who did drama loved musicals. They were perky & preppy. I didn’t go much for perky & preppy. Musicals just seemed like a long time for people who liked the sound of their own voice to just go on and on and on. They were the ones who competitively hogged karaoke machines.

That said, I’m a sucker for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That coat was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey and purple and white and pink and orange and red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey and purple and white and pink and orange and blue represent.

So I have a weakness here and there, but I was more looking forward to the spectacle because if there is one thing the dear old Civic can do, it can do fake gold spectacle.

Before Glee, there was WICKED. WICKED embodied the joy of big singing and dancing in the same way Glee would enthusiastically pick up 6 years later. The clever Oz twist story of how good becomes evil and how much better evil is than good is a decade old and promises much.

To decide if it delivered I decided to take as my plus one my darling wee 4 year old daughter who had for weeks been excitedly pointing out pictures of the Green Witch Elphaba around town declaring that she must see this Green Witch with her own eyes. I concurred that such Green Witches must be seen to be believed so we made plans.

The show was perky and preppy and I could immediately see how addictive this must be for some people, as the woman sitting next to me noisily mouthing each word to every song proved.

It was a very good spectacle of a show, amazing use of the Civic, very clever props and backdrops and the songs lent themselves to the kind of big voice extraverted singing that normally drives me round the bend, but WICKED managed to charm.

What was most amazing however was the utter spell bound look of saucer eyed awe my daughter had on her face the whole time, and it helped my cynical black heart appreciate that it was that sense of magic that everyone had come to recapture and experience.

Afterwards I asked her how many stars I should give WICKED, she clapped her hands excitedly and said Fifty-five million stars.

Fifty-five million stars it is.