Review by Jay

Name of Show: Wicked The Musical (London)

Date: Saturday 12th February (Evening)

Starring: Rachel Tucker, Louise Dearman, Ben Stott, Mark Evans,

Words and Music: Stephen Schwartz

Opened: 27th September 2006

Theatre: Apollo Victoria Theatre, London

Seats: Stalls A21

Seat Review: Fantastic, best view in the house for sure!

Price: 27.50 – I dayseated for this. Definately worth waiting outside in the cold for 2 hours for!

Visit Number: Waaay too many to count!

Rating out of  10: 10 for sure!

Recommend: Definitely!

Describe it in 5 words: Incredible, amazing, fantastic, awesome, perfect!

Jay‘s Review:
I was nervous about going back to Oz so soon after the old cast have left, but I was not left disappointed.  It was strange at first not seeing the familiar faces in their opening costumes (especially Danny Mac) but the pure energy you could see they were putting in made the transition a lot easier.

Ben Stott – Boq
As soon as he came on the stage you heard an ‘aww’ emerge from the audience, he is such a cute and innocent boq and I love the way he plays the role! He is constantly staring at Glinda, trying to catch her eye, reacting to everything she says (for example: in the classroom scene when she says ‘the artichoke is steamed’ he does this huge OTT laugh). His facial expressions are just amazing, and the way you can tell he is so in love with Glinda is brilliant. Wicked Witch of the East was one of my highlights of last night, when he got ‘magic spelled’ it was heartbreaking and you could see tears in his eyes and the scream he left out was horrible. Such an incredible actor and a really nice voice too!

Zoe Rainey – NessaRose.
What an incredible actress Zoe is! She is such a fresh Nessa, and plays the role differently to how I’ve seen it done before. As soon as she lays eyes on boq you can see her face change and she falls in love with him there and then. She is a fantastic actress and, like Ben, reacts to everything on stage brilliantly. When it came to Wicked Witch of the East she was beyond amazing. Everything about her in this scene was incredible. I love that she wheels next to elphaba when she starts the chanting and tries to stop her. And when she says ‘lost your heart’ she is so emotional, for the first time i actually understood Nessa and why she was so angry, and felt so sorry for her when boq left her – ‘I still love you…’ broke my heart when she said that! She could well be my favourite Nessa of all time, only time will tell!

Mark Evans – Fiyero.
WOW. Just wow! As soon as he came on stage he had such swagger and cockyness about him. During Dancing Through Life he was very dismissive of Glinda, and Louise was playing on this trying more and more to get his attention. His singing voice is incredible, threw in some riffs through it too which blew me away! The crowd was going wild for him! Just before I’m Not That Girl, when Elphaba grabs his hand, you see a change in Mark’s face that I’ve not seen in any other Fiyero apart from Nicolas Dromand (with Eden Espinosa in San Francisco). It’s a look that shows he has just realised he’s fallen in love with Elphaba, it’s a brilliant moment and shows what a great actor Mark is! His chemistry with both Louise and Rachel is amazing, and you would think he’s been doing it for years! As Long As You’re Mine was just brilliant and probably the best version I have seen performed. Rachel and Mark acted everything through this song brilliantly, showing such a cute romantic side to Elphie and Fiyero. And again Mark threw in some riffs which wowed the audience! this was probably my favourite song in the whole show, which makes a change!

The rest of the cast were on fine form, Rachel was even more powerhouse than usual in Defying Gravity (perhaps because of the Dancing On Ice rehearsals), and her No Good Deed was so full of emotion, she had tears streaming down her face and did the most fantastic ‘again’ riff! Louise added in little changes to Glinda, just the way she pronounces certain words and does things, it’s a good change and makes her Glinda even funnier!

All in all, an amazing fantastic cast and I would highly recommend going to see them as soon as you can! You will not be disappointed at all!

WOW!! Thanks Jay for an absolutely amaazing review! Click here to follow him on Twitter for many Wicked related tweets! I cannot wait to go and see this lot strut their stuff on the AV stage! Have you seen the new cast? What do you think of them?

Keep your eye on the MiniHobo FaceBook Page for a musical related giveaway in February Half Term!!

MH xXx

To buy tickets to see Rachel, Louise, Zoe, Mark and Ben in Wicked click here. (Ticketmaster!)