Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Wizard of Oz, London Palladium, review

Charles Spencer Telegraph 03/01/2011 17:21

As I walked along Oxford Street towards the London Palladium I found that I was humming “We’re Off to See the Wizard” through gritted teeth. The fact is that I have never been a friend of Dorothy and have always cordially loathed The Wizard of Oz.

I was mercifully spared this lurid Technicolor dream as a child, when it would undoubtedly have given me nightmares, but watching it for the first time in adulthood, I found its combination of cruelty and sentimentality downright repellent. The score by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg is undoubtedly a fine one, but much of the movie had me metaphorically reaching for the sick-bag.

I can’t pretend that I experienced a damascene conversion at this lavish new stage version, for which the BBC generously provided so much free advertising with the popular talent contest Over the Rainbow, but I did at least manage to sit through it without throwing up in the aisle.

And if you like The Wizard of Oz on film you will undoubtedly enjoy the stage version too.

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.

I wouldn’t get too excited by the prospect of the handful of new songs written by the old firm of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, though Red Shoes Blues sung by Hannah Waddingham’s magnificently malevolent Wicked West of the Witch brings some welcome wit to the party. As the green-faced, flame-spurting, and disconcertingly sexy villainess contemplates young Dorothy, and sings “She’s pretty, she’s clueless and I want her shoeless” you realise that the Lord has been without his old sparring partner for too long.