The WIZARD of OZ is currently in preview at the London Palladium. It opens officially on March 1st with a couple of Charity Galas in the near future. It is said to have taken an Advance in excess of £10 mill and tickets are very hard to come by even for the summer months.
The theatre is one of the most famous in London and was 100 years old last Boxing Day. It has been refurbished with a completely new room named after the legendary impresario Val Parnell. There are lots more lavatories too!
Now for the review
Of course the story is well known but the original film has been adapted and rescored to make the Musical. The part of Dorothy was cast from the BBC's hit programme Over the Rainbow and so Danielle Hope was familiar to most of the audience. She gave an impressive performance and seems to have bonded well with her dog Toto. The dog is amazing as he/she is on stage for most of the evening and never once misbehaved 
My only doubt about Danielle would be whether she will have the vocal strength for 6 shows a week. Michael Crawford returns to the Palladium to play The Wizard of OZ and his entry was greeted with spontaneous applause. His presence on stage gives the cast a tremendous degree of confidence. After all, he is an absolute legend in musical theatre. A little greyer than when I first saw him in Phantom but he still has the magic that allows him to take command of the audience. There are three teams of 10 children that appear in this production. They have the most delightful costumes and three little girls sing a verse of one number with three boys singing another verse. I would say that some of the little girls were probably about five years old
The children were only in one scene in Act 1 and so they came front of house during the interval and I believe may have watched Act 2. One of the girls was still wearing her costume!I know that certain forum members have a particular interest in music and so I will mention the orchestra. It has 16 musicians plus Graham Hurman as musical director. The instruments include Harp, Flute/Piccolo, and Oboe/Cor Anglais which gives a classical feel to the music. A very far cry from We Will Rock You
The original songs have been augmented with additional music by Andrew Loyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. This all worked very well and I can see the soundtrack selling shedloads.The technical side to the production is fantastic. Even though this was a preview everything worked
. The stage revolve and lifts all came in on cue and the lasers, pyrotechnics, 3D visuals made the audience gasp at times. The Twister was absolutely amazing 
I was thinking 'how did they do that.' Moreover they have an absolutely state of the art sound system with a full team of sound engineers. Everything was synchronised and crystal clear. Then there's the flying. In contrast to a certain Broadway Show, the flying was safe and jaw dropping. I will say no more so that I do not spoil things for anyone planning to go.I don't do thesis style reviews of course
so I had better draw this to a close. In short this is probably the most wonderful musical I have seen (apart from BETM of course). It could enjoy the same degree of success as Les Mis and Phantom. If you are thinking of going, plan well ahead or queue for returns. I know I shall.
