News

The Wizard of Oz opened in grand style last night (1st March 2011) with the likes of Michael Caine, Rowan Atkinson, Cameron Mackintosh, David Frost and Barbara Windsor attending the star studded event at the London Palladium. The highly anticipated Andrew Lloyd Webber production did not disappoint with a cast led by Over The Rainbow’s Danielle Hope along with Michael Crawford and West End regular Hannah Waddingham. The show saw, after 34 years, Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice working together again on new songs to compliment the already famous score by EY Harburg and Harold Arlen.

The show was well attended from the celebrity world, all eager to re-live the film live on stage. Celebs included:

Rupert Everett, Graham Norton, Des O'Connor, Barbara Windsor, Anneka Rice, Bill Kenwright (Producer), Janet Street Porter, Gloria Hunniford, Lesley Garrett, Jodie Prenger, Charlotte Church, John Partridge, Tamzin Outhwaite, Arlene Phillips, Vanessa Feltz, Phillip Schofield, George Lamb and all the runners up from Over The Rainbow.

Interestingly Michael Grade attended the event, who last year was in negotiations to buy four of Webber’s theatres, the plans later fell through. The only person missing was Liza Minnelli, daughter of the legendary Judy Garland who played Dorothy in the original film. Liza has famously stated over the years how she cannot bear to watch the film and presumably would not want to attend the new West End Production.

The Independent

“Jeremy Sams' production is a marvel of beguiling narrative fluency and, with Richard Jones' superb designs, of endlessly witty and spectacular visual invention – from the digitally-enhanced hurricane transition to Oz to the skeletally twisted Gothic palace of the Wicked Witch and her totalitarian, helmeted guards … You can't fault the proficiency of Hope's performance or her clear, serviceable singing...”
 

The Times

“Hope is charming: sweetly naive and sincere. When she first soars into ‘Over the Rainbow’ without a tremor, applause stops the action … The tornado gets applause too — no mechanical or projection device is spared as the farmhouse whirls through outer space to land in the primary-coloured toytown of Oz, with a pair of dead witch’s legs under it … The three friends on the road are fun - Paul Keating physically fearless and funny as the Scarecrow, and David Ganly a very camp lion (‘I am proud be a friend of Dorothy’). But for all the fabulous forest, and the glorious pipework and levers and dials of Oz’s lair, it didn’t move me … The second half takes off, being darker and nicely frightening. Hannah Waddingham gives the witch real viciousness, even with Rice-rhymes like ‘she’s prissy, she’s clueless, I want her shoeless’ … Crawford brings vulnerability and humour. I warmed to it at last, despite a helpless sense that it’s a juggernaut. A predetermined hit.”

The Telegraph

"Jeremy Sams’s production pulls out all the stops, with ingenious designs by Robert Jones that skilfully conjure up both the sepia world of Kansas and the lurid colours of Oz. Dorothy’s flight to the enchanted land is thrillingly caught with the help of film effects that wouldn’t look out of place on Dr Who and the story is told with clarity and pace. Better yet the Munchkins are genuinely sweet rather than the grotesque freak-show offered by MGM, and Toto – a delightful white Westie - proves absolutely adorable."

The Wizard of Oz tells the story of a Kansas farm girl - Dorothy Gale - who finds herself in the Land of Oz after a sudden tornado sweeps up her home. After meeting Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, Dorothy learns that in order to get home she must travel along the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to find the help of the mysterious Wizard. On her travels she makes three unlikely friends - a Scarecrow, a Tin Man and a cowardly Lion. The only thing that stands in their way is the Wicked Witch of the West, who is desperate to have Dorothy’s magical ruby slippers.