Wicked

What Wicked actually is

Elphaba and Galinda are put in the same room at Shiz University and cannot stand each other. Over the course of the evening they become friends, and then the politics of Oz forces them apart — one into the palace and one into the history books as the Wicked Witch of the West. Everything The Wizard of Oz tells you happens offstage, late, and from the wrong angle.

Music and lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz, the book is by Winnie Holzman, from Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel. Joe Mantello directed it and Wayne Cilento choreographed it, and the original company was led by Idina Menzel as Elphaba, Kristin Chenoweth as Glinda, Norbert Leo Butz as Fiyero and Joel Grey as the Wizard. It won three Tony Awards in 2004.

What a ticket buys is scale. The Gershwin holds 1,900 people, the dragon over the proscenium is part of the set rather than part of the marketing, and the first act ends with Elphaba flying. If you know one song it is “Defying Gravity”; the others people leave humming are “Popular” and “For Good”.

The evening runs two hours forty-five with one fifteen-minute interval. Broadway Direct gives it an age guidance of eight and up, and children under five are not admitted at all — every person in the room needs a ticket, whatever their age.