WICKED AT THE BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME
Theatre Run: Wednesday 09 July - Saturday 06 September 2014
Performance Reviewed: Thursday 10 July (Press Night)
Reviewed by Kyle Pedley
Wicked will cast it's spell upon you... Wicked is wicked-ly
good... Spellbinding!
With that obligatory bit of housekeeping out of the way,
it's almost difficult to comprehend what to say about musical colossus Wicked that hasn't already been said
countless times over. One of the most celebrated and successful musicals of the
21st Century, it is an internationally renowned mega-hit whose adoration (and
ticket sales) show no sign of dwindling any time soon. Winnie Holzman's adapted
tale that takes a canted look at the witches of Oz (taken from Gregory
Maguire's more morbid book of the same name) combined with Stephen Schwartz's
already-iconic music has leapt into our collective cultural consciousness and
tapped into a generational zeitgeist in a way that most other musicals could
only dream of. And now, as the show
takes off on its first ever UK and Ireland tour, the fervour and excitement in Birmingham
and the surrounding area for the show's arrival at the city's Hippodrome theatre has
been at fever pitch, showing that these witches are as 'popular' as ever and
just as adept at defying expectations as they are gravity.
