The Wiz (Hope Mill Theatre)

Oh fantastic! Leah Hill was always electrifying to watch in ‘Hamilton’. If she can imbue her choreo with a fraction of that energy this should be 🔥🔥🔥🔥

This looks amazing! 💚

And the producer is 20 years old!!!

Incredible.

Tickets have quietly gone on sale for this, I only realised upon checking the website on the off chance. I’m expecting great things from my first experience of a professional production of this show. “Home” is simply fantastic.

I’m at tonight’s first show.

Well, that was definitely worth making the trip to Hope Mill tonight. With a run time of around 2.5hrs with an interval (we started a bit late with both Acts) this one definitely hit the mark for me by the end.

This show is done entirely at floor level. Walking into the auditorium to take my seat, I’ll admit I was wondering about sets and I was a bit taken aback to see a really minimal staging used here in both acts. There are just a few props used to set some scenes such as a model house for the start to signify Kansas. For the majority of the show there really is just a big empty stage for the cast. The lighting design actually is useful here as it helps to set locations and worked really well. For example green lighting is used for the Wizard, red lighting for the witch. On the walls of the auditorium there has been painted characters from the Wizard of Oz.

The lack of any substantial sets was cleared up early on as to why this approach was taken. There is a-lot of dancing within the show. With a mix of street and hip hop styles, for a first night was really slick and worked really well with the score. 

Director Matthew Xia and his team really have assembled a great cast of 14 here. What shines through is their vocal talent which was worth every penny of my ticket money in my opinion in delivering the score. Like the choreography, for a first night, I couldn’t fault their performances. Jonathan Andre as the lion though was for me the standout. Plenty of comedy moments from him. 

The music is provided by a terrific band of 8. You’ve got keyboards, drums, trombone, flugelhorn, reeds, bass and guitar. Thankfully the sound mixing was spot on tonight so didn’t overpower 

So should you ease on down the road for this one? I’d say yes. 

robertb213, I was sat front row with plenty of space between me and the edge of the stage. 

Just think of the panic backstage when word got around that dance dynamo david was in da house. 😁

I have a very vague recollection that Sinitta was in a production of this at the world-famous Crucible Theatre, alongside Derek Griffiths from Play School. I'm sure there used to be a cast photo in one of the display cases.

What sort of reception did it get from the audience david?

(I mean the show, not your moonwalk)

This lived up to expectations for me. The cast are phenomenal with some of the purest vocals and best dance abilities I’ve seen. Tarik Frimpong delivered Leah Hill’s choreography spectacularly, along with the whole cast, but his scarecrow deserves special recognition.

The stage was mostly bare with very few set pieces, but this doesn’t need a lot of frills due to the way the cast change the space just through the choreography. My only complaint was that it was difficult to hear the vocals over the orchestration at points.

There was a handful of empty seats which surprised me for the first Saturday of the run, but hopefully word of mouth will get round. I really hope this sees a future life at some point.

Selectable seating rather than “sections” these days I note. 

Whsts the deal with the cheapies at the sides of the stage? unlimited legroom by the looks of it but is it horrific high stools or something? 

Hope Mill is not the easiest place to find without a smart phone / google map for guidance so glad I allowed plenty of time to walk from the Travelodge. No signposting at all even when very close. My list of roads to take, which usually gets me where I want to go, hit several stumbling blocks because a lot of roads in Manchester don't have the usual street signs. Anyway I'm here now, front row, should be a good'un.

Very enjoyable. The whole cast worked their proverbials off and I found it more entertaining than the version shown on TV not long ago.

Hope Mill was far from full though which is disappointing so early in the run.

Cancelled today, they emailed 5 minutes after I paid £50 for a train. Luckily the cancellation came through 1 minute before I boarded the train and I got a refund. Such a shame as next weekend is all sold out now, but hopefully it'll transfer 🤞