Wicked
October 24 @ 19:30 - November 23 @ 23:00
£19.00A month before its film adaptation (part one) gets its big screen outing, musical behemoth Wicked is flying back into Cardiff for a whole month at the Wales Millennium Centre. Coming up for 20 years in the West End to boot, this is the musical’s third tour of the UK and Ireland, and the fandom shows no signs of slowing down. Based on the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West, a revisionist backstory of L. Frank Baum’s Oz characters, Wicked is both a prequel to and parallel version of The Wizard Of Oz. It turns out that Elphaba – the Wicked Witch herself – and Glinda, aka the Good Witch, were actually pals while at Shiz University, in the classic way two very different girls start as enemies only to end up as friends. Elphaba and Glinda’s relationship is tested by their differences, love interests and the Wizard Of Oz’s corrupt rule. This is certainly not Frank Morgan‘s loveable Wizard of 1939, and we find out what happened to make this witch wicked. The Grammy-winning music and lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz, the name behind hit musicals like Godspell and Pippin (not to mention the beautiful song Meadowlark, from The Baker’s Wife) as well as a handful of hit Disney movies. Wicked is famous for its hit musical numbers like No One Mourns The Wicked, The Wizard And I and Popular as sung by Kristin Chenoweth, Broadway’s original Glinda. Most spectacular of all, though, is the massive, flyaway Defying Gravity. On at 2.30pm and 7.30pm on Wed 30 Oct and Wed 20 Nov, plus every Thursday and Saturday after Thurs 4 Oct; 2pm and 7pm on Sun 27 Oct; 2pm only on every Sunday thereafter. Tickets: £19-£95. words CHRIS WILLIAMS
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