The Wizard of Oz - Curve / Palladium / Tour & GL

Well this just isn't fair - these three are fabulous casting which make me want to see the show in spite of Manford and Banjo.

Dianne is making quite the career out of playing witches

More to the point, who in the cast has been bumped out for the London run?

Really tempted to try a two show day with this and Wicked, but which way around…?!

Some people were also booked already with other projects last November. So not all ensemble / principals were dropped. Some also didn’t want to do the transfer.

The full cast is completed by Ben Thompson (Toto), Annie Southall, Charlotte St Croix, Claire O'Leary, Eamonn Cox, Emily Ann Potter, Geoff Aymer, Harrison Wilde, Jacqui Dubois, Jessica Daley, Jonathan Dryden Taylor, Lauren Stroud, Marley Fenton, Michael Lin and Sam Stones.

Oklahoma! and The Wizard of Oz share Michael Harrison as a producer so it's not too surprising that Georgina is returning as Dorothy.

surprisingly good performance given some previous horror shows on TV! much better than we will rock you as well. 

Surprised how good that performance was. Its the first time anything from this production has really sold it.

That said Ashley, oh dear he really can't sing and the tin man is now a robot?!

No not really I thought it looked rather nice. The costumes are pretty good.

I don't recall Ashley doing anything wildly different to the original performer of this tin man, the role isn't a traditional tin man in this version.

Going off Britain’s Got Talent I liked Georgina, but wasn’t too fussed on the rest of them, so I’ll be waiting for the tour.

Liverpool Empire’s upselling the front row again though…

“Ambassador Platinum Lounge Experience
includes entry to the Ambassador Lounge, a glass of Grande Marque Champagne, a second drink, luxury cheeseboard, and an ice cream”

For £111! No ta.

Saw tonight's show, and despite a 10 minute production stop near the end, I really enjoyed myself.

Georgina Onuorah sings wonderfully and the starry supporting cast bring an immense likeability to the adventure, especially Jason Manford as the Lion, who is very funny, and Louis Gaunt as the Scarecrow, who is very endearing.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I did see the 2011 Palladium production, and there it was the villains who were stars, though the biggest name, Michael Crawford, had so little to do, it felt like an anticlimax.

This production felt much more fun, as the starriness encompassed the leads, who accompany cheery belting Georgina Onuorah's Dorothy on her adventure, and who we spend all our time with.

Jason Manford can really sing (I've seen him do it in Sweeney Todd, The Producers and Chitty) and he's rousing in the few passages he's asked to carry a solo, but where he really excels is in getting laughs, his lion weeping with wimpy cowardly fear, getting laughs again and again and again, despite having little to work with.

As the Scarecrow, the terrific singer, Louis Gaunt cuts an Errol Flynn level heroic action figure, dashing around, dumbly and endearingly clueless, even while missing an arm lol.

And to give him his due, Ashley Banjo may not be able to sing, at all, but he makes up for it in his Diversity style robotic moves, which deliver a star power in dance and movement that he can't deliver vocally.

Add the sheer accomplishment of Ben Thompson's Toto puppetry, and the adventurers are SUCH a winning bunch.

Dianne Pilkington's CEO of Wicked Witch W. Incorporated cuts a less scary and imposing figure than Hannah Waddingham did (she doesn't fly like Waddingham did, for starters), camply cackling, and dancing self-consciously badly, while sitting in unexpected places, but Pilkington's campness is delightful for adults, even while kids might be slightly scared of her bolt-throwing broomstick, while she nails her songs.

If Pilkington is camply evil, then Christina Bianco is camply good: there's a self-aware cheek-pursed primness to her performance that begs to be seen as a sendup of "Wicked," and she is just as camply amusing as Pilkington, her singing a commanding bonus.

The spare sets were no bother for the first half, with the dynamic projections, charming character introductions and adventure storyline holding our attention, but in the second half, the spareness and bareness was more noticeable, as the protagonists triumphed a little too easily, with too few set or story obstacles.

In many ways, this is like a family version of the Palladium's Panto, with better songs, a better storyline, and less transgressive rudeness, and it even has Gary Wilmot being charming, and singing the heck out of the Oz bit part at the end, to make the comparison more obvious.

All in all, the classic songs are classics for a reason, and coupled with star charisma all over the place and loads of light hearted comic beats hitting their marks, this was four stars of great iconic fun for me.