Leicester Curve's The Wizard of Oz proves its time to ditch Lloyd Webber's adaptation ✍️ The story has given generations of children permission to be different. But while this production is imaginative, the script plays it disappointingly straight
Frank Baum was a pyrotechnicist of a writer, filling his wildly successfulis like sitting in the middle of a firework display: technicoloured projections fizz above your head as Dorothy and her pals head off to see the wizard. But like a firework, it gives out more light than warmth.
This adaptation first premiered in the West End in 2011, with its Dorothy cast by reality television seriesHere, Georgina Onuorah makes a thoughtful, soulful Dorothy, and her rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is the show’s standout moment, brimming over with yearning . Still, her presence is not enough to rescue the humourless, often charmless script. Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice and Jeremy Sam’s adaptation sticks closely to the movie, adding a few forgettable songs and valiantly avoiding almost all opportunities for camp or silliness. In one promising moment, Cowardly Lion declares “I’m a friend of Dorothy”, but instead of preening, he slinks back into the closet for the rest of the show.
There’s also a disappointing lack of scenes showing the camaraderie between Dorothy’s band of misfits. The creators of mega-hit musicalunderstood that people love this story for its themes of friendship and acceptance, but I don’t think this show does: not least because it engineers a totally unnecessary mini-romance between Dorothy and Scarecrow.
Still, at least director Nikolai Foster’s zippy, imaginative revival injects a bit of wit, mostly through neat visual touches. The witches zoom in on motorbikes, not brooms. In the scene where the gang fall asleep in a poppy field, there’s a vending machine bearing the slogan “Drink PoppyCola”, in a callback to Pepsi’s opiate origins. And Scarecrow is molested by manically cawing ravens who threaten to derail his rendition of “If I Only Had a Brain”.
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