Wicked, Apollo Victoria

Wicked might just be the perfect musical. The songs, the story and the staging are all pretty much unimproveable, and every member of the present cast, without exception, is as good a singer as they are an actor as they are a dancer. I enjoyed it even more this time than when I first saw it a couple of years ago, and I came away and told everyone I knew how good it was.

And yet, I can’t quite bring myself to fall in love with it. It’s almost as though – and I know how silly this sounds – it was designed to be clinically perfect, rather than fun. It is fun – lots of fun – but it’s almost so good that nothing about it seems quite human. It’s on too grand a scale to be engaged with.

None of which should put you off seeing it. I was particularly blown away by the actress currently playing Elphaba, the lead character, and completely astounded several days later to discover that she is Rachel Tucker, whom I hated with an unnecessary and undeserved venom when she looked likely to win the part of Nancy in I’d Do Anything.  I disliked her, in fact, for the same sort of reasons I can’t love Wicked: an icy-cold professionalism that seemed to get in the way of the real person. But in this she’s just sensational, with a voice and a physical presence that deserves to be seen over and over again. She also suits being green.

That’s not to take anything away from the rest of the cast, who are uniformly brilliant. It’s hard to know where to look at times because everyone is so shimmeringly watchable that you don’t want to wrench your gaze away from any of them. And the whole piece is so dazzlingly over the top that in the end you have to stop worrying about where to look and just let it wash over you in a wave of wonder.

The songs are good, and the lyrics are excellent. You can’t get much neater, for example, than this:

And helping you with your ascent al-
-lows me to feel so parental
For I am a sentimental man

I’m not sure it translates to the written page, so you might just have to trust me, but it’s full of lovely little wordy flourishes like that.

The story is equally smart, with some clever nods to The Wizard of Oz which will make you want to go and watch the film again even though it’s long and boring and Judy Garland is the only good thing about it. I had forgotten how it’s wrapped up, but the ending in particular is touching and lovely.

So there’s literally nothing wrong with Wicked. Nothing at all. And if you want to take your mum, or your god-daughter or fiancée, on an outing to a London show, I don’t think you could do better. Just, well, it didn’t make me cry, and honestly, everything makes me cry. It sent shivers down my spine and made my fingertips tingle, but it didn’t make me cry, and I can’t quite tell you why.