Trill-fest continues to weave its magic

Wicked: Lowry, Salford

WHEN the current tour of “Wicked” opened in Manchester in September 2013, I suggested it was one of those shows that impresses, but doesn’t have you running for your credit card to see again.

Eighteen months or so later, the Lowry in Salford plays host to the last date on the tour and it turns out I was mostly right. Eighteen months is about the right interval, if only to let your ears recover.

“Wicked” is packed with songs whose melodies are not the kind you can whistle. They have long and tortuous musical lines; they start high in the range and get only higher and louder, leaving you wondering just how long the admirable leading ladies, Emily Tierney (Glinda the good witch) and Ashleigh Gray (Elphaba, the even better witch), gargle with honey before each performance.

That relentless trill-fest, the lack of any real romantic interest until well into the second half (with Fiyero, Samuel Edwards), and a plot that suggests Elphaba’s role and death in the parallel story of “The Wizard of Oz” is political spin and she’s really a freedom fighter against the oppression of Steven Pinder’s Oz, only serve to confuse and give us lots to take in.

This playing with L Frank Baum’s original is rather entertainingly done, with plausible ideas on where the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion came from, on Elphaba’s final escape to freedom and much more.

But all of it has to be packed into a musical already packed with ironic comedy and tons of songs, leaving the ears and eyes battered from the amazing set, sound and lighting.

“Wicked” remains one of those shows you must see at least once: it is too impressive in the singing and design departments to ignore. But I find myself still largely uninvolved by the story, despite knowing what is to come.

I reckon a part of the problem is Stephen Schwartz. The composer and lyricist also manages to be epic but curiously unengaging in his two other famous works, “Godspell” and “Children of Eden”. And to make “Godspell” uninvolving, given its subject, requires a special talent.

But it doesn’t do to be too critical of the Wicked phenomenon: the first night house (rightly) rose to applaud as one at the end and the show is on course for a sell-out — just like 18 months ago. Witchcraft, presumably.