The Wicked Witch of the West End

I have never really got on with musicals.  Either sing a song or tell a story; don't try to do both.  Nonetheless, to earn some man-points I whisked my other half up to London to see Wicked, the musical history of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.  I enjoyed it rather more than I expected to, although given the same starting point I might have done something rather darker with it.

Elphaba is the classic outsider (the green skin is something of a giveaway here) as, like Harry Potter, she is packed off to sorcery school where she is not immediately popular.  Particularly antagonistic is Glinda, who grows up to be the Good Witch of the South.  Here, though, she starts out spoiled and self-obsessed.  Eventually they become friends, but Elphaba, who is not really wicked at all, uses her powers to correct injustice, before concluding "no good deed goes unpunished".  Eventually she runs off with...we'll, you'll have to see the show to find out.  The plot amusingly reinterprets some of the much-loved tropes of the film, and the songs (once you accept they aren't meant to advance the story) are enjoyable interludes.

If you can stomach paying £3 for a minuscule tub of ice-cream, Wicked is an undemanding but very entertaining thrre hours.