There Is No Place Like Home: Now get the hell off of the stage before I call the theatre police!

By Jonathan Jones
Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Every now and again, the gods of musical theatre look down upon the earth in utter horror at the lack of innovation, ingenuity, or creativity. In retaliation, they thrust upon us theatrical disasters of epic proportions. You know them well: Nick & Nora, Starlight Express, Mamma Mia, Love Never Dies. To be added to the list is Lord Lloyd Webber’s latest, and perhaps finest, travesty, The Wizard of Oz. Wicked, oh Wicked. Wherefore art thou Wicked? It is your success that is to blame for this unimaginable abomination. Gone is your brain. Gone is your heart. Gone is your courage. In its place, we have Michael Crawford impersonating Liberace in one moment, and Regis Philbin in the next. The Wicked Witch of the West appears styled after Sour Grapes from the 1980’s incarnation of The Smurfs, and Glinda is a disco ball, floating across the stage (she couldn’t possibly arrive by bubble: it may incur a lawsuit). Toto has been replaced by a fluffy white sheep running around the stage and barking at will (he got the loudest applause in the curtain call). In the Oz moments, they couldn’t help themselves but to steal cast away costumes and props from Wicked (yes, the streamers and the green goggles were on full display tonight), but who could blame them? Only the set was worthy of any accolade, and only due to their economic use of space. Spiderman inspired moments of flying around the audience abound, but nowhere near as daring as the original. And then there are the songs…. In fact, the added music may be the most sinful of all. Rodeo music was the theme for Kansas—who cares if it was entirely out of place alongside Harold Arlen’s classics? Hoedown was on Webber’s menu, score be damned! And then, of course, the Wicked Witch’s bizarre flamenco moment with the winkies, who took off their flowing grey coats to reveal red shirts and trousers held up with sexy black suspenders. Nevermind that the choreography was reminiscent of Mariah Carey’s finer stage performances: with the witch (in this moment, hair blown out like a troubled Beyonce video) apparently showing that her real control over the winkies was not mystical, but rather inappropriately sexual, there was clearly no limit to what this concoction had to offer: Epic Disaster.




And since the unfortunate number in Spiderman about shoes was not a significant enough disaster in its own right, we now have another number about shoes to remind us what does not make good musical theatre songwriting subject matter:

There is an entire YouTube channel dedicated to this monstrosity, Enjoy:


The Wizard of Oz @ the London Palladium YouTube Channel


Don't believe my tirade? See for yourself: