Something Wicked This Way Comes

This week I saw Wicked for the third time - the last time I saw it was for my birthday last year and after seeing an advert at the cinema when I saw UP (amazing film by the way, go see it. Pixar are genius') I really wanted to go see it again. Last week at school we had a musical theatre lesson with a teacher we hadn't had before, George Ure, who's currently in the ensemble understudying Boq in Wicked, London. There were a fair few fans in the class and we ended up chatting about the show and he told us he was going on as Boq on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. We had a trip to Arts Ed to see their third year show, 'My Favorite Year' on Tuesday and managed to get tickets for the evening performance of Wicked.

The trip to Arts Ed was definitely inspiring but not particularly groundbreaking. We were taken to a series of lessons that covered all three disciplines and by the end of the classes I was desperate to join in. However, I didn't really learn anything knew, although the standard of the performers there was extremely high, which seemed a shock to some people. The show itself really wasn't my cup of tea, although the performances were all very, very good.

Then we made our way to Victoria and after a little mayhem involving tickets, watched a fantastic performance. Alexia Khadime was on as Elphaba and was brilliant as always - however, I did prefer her performance the last time I saw her, particularly in Defying Gravity, which usually gives that goose bump moment. However, this could due to my dwindling like of the show as a whole. However George, as Boq, was brilliant and another of my teachers, Adam Garcia (ensemble) was too - most of us could not take our eyes of them during most of the show!

During the interval we got a phone call from George - he was able to take us backstage after the show! This led to quite a lot of excitement by us and intrigue by surrounding audience members. After the performance we headed to the stage door and met Adam and George who took us backstage, much to the jealous of the fans gathered at SD - some of them wondered whether they could have followed us in!

Seeing the working side of the theatre was incredible - the props and costumes were amazing detailed and it was really interesting just to see behind the scenes. The best part, for me at least, was going in front of the Oz Map curtain and standing on the stage before of the 2,000+ seat theatre. It really inspired me and was daunting but amazing. It really brought home the reality of performing in front of so many people, night after night and gave me even more determination.