Seeing the Wicked UK tour at the Birmingham Hippodrome makes it the third time I’ve seen this show. Along with Bat Out of Hell, it is one of my favourite shows. It was also the first ever show I saw, as well as my first ever West End show. I fell in love with it and I’ve never been disappointed.
The UK tour is no exception.
Quick Show Summary
Wicked is a show about the two famous witches of Oz and how they met, following their lives, including through the Wizard of Oz story itself. It features a lot of fun and also emotional musical numbers. It has the perfect mix of humour and serious moments, and is generally a show that all the family can watch together, and the website recommends it for 7+.
Wicked UK Tour Performers
The performers for this show are spectacular. Laura Pick as Elphaba and Sarah O’Connor as Glinda are amazing. Both were impressive singers that garnered lots of applause. The rest of the cast are also very good, especially Jed Berry as Boq who conveys the awkward and love-struck nature very well, and Megan Gardiner as Nessarose.
All of the ensemble were great at both singing and dancing, and I always love the extravagant costumes they get to wear for the Emerald City parts.
Wicked UK Tour and West End Differences
If you have never seen the show at the Apollo Victoria theatre in London, you likely won’t notice anything odd or unusual about the characters entering or exiting the stage. The main differences are the lack of trapdoor, the bridge where characters can walk across, or even Elphaba rising up through the stage at one point. There is also no towers, as such, either side of the stage where characters can stand from a second level. This is remedied by steps and a platform that only appears when needed.The bridge is still included in the set, but the characters can’t walk across it. All of these changes involve the characters now walking onto the stage in some form, except the trapdoor which I won’t spoil.
I was glad that none of these were noticeably awkward or odd looking. For anyone who hasn’t seen the show, or hasn’t seen it in a while, it probably won’t be anything that you remember anyway as it has been changed so seamlessly to adapt to the other theatres.
Overall
Overall, this show has few differences between it’s UK tour version and the West End version. Both have phenomenal performances and similarly beautiful sets. While some things are different, it isn’t too noticeable or distracting, and is still definitely worth seeing.
I am not affiliated with Wicked or Birmingham Hippodrome.
Want to check out Wicked for yourself? Check out its website for Wicked on the West End and the Wicked UK tour here.
Want to read another of my musical reviews? Read my last musical review (of the Spongebob musical) here. You can find the last review of any theatre experience, 2:22: A Ghost Story, here.