Wicked Weekend

Just back from spoiling M rotten for her birthday (which I missed due to travel)...  First Wicked at the Victoria Apollo, the checked in to the St Martin's Lane hotel, with cocktails at the Light Bar and finally dinner at Bar Shu.

Wicked was interesting.  As a musical I was a little disappointed, the numbers were, at least to me a little too much like Sondheim stuff and not actually good enough as songs to stand alone, as M pointed out as we left not one of them actually stuck in the head as a tune or a lyric.

However, that aside, the staging is amazing, the quality of the cast is completely out of this world.  The actress who plays Elphaba, Idnia Menzel, is amazing.  Nigel Planer, as the Wizard and Miriam Margolies were excellent too.  Glinda, I thought was a weak link, as the part was so obviously written with a Legally Blonde style Californian airhead in mind, moving it to a posh home counties Sloane Ranger type doesn't work as well.

Anyway, the killer is the story.  It's perfect, absoltuely perfect, as the back story to the story of the Wizard of Oz, and telling the REAL story, not the spin version you get in the movie :)