Wicked: The Real Story (2024) Review
Written by Penny for Theatre and Tonic.
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but next week a new film is due to open in the UK! Of course it is impossible not to have noticed. The Wicked movie is the long-awaited and much hyped film adaptation of Stephen Schwarz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical, itself based on the novel by Gregory Maguire. Wicked is a prequel to possibly the most iconic musical film in cinema history, The Wizard Of Oz. It tells the story of what happened “before Dorothy dropped in”.
Wicked opened on Broadway in 2003 and reached London’s West End in 2006. It still runs on New York’s Great White Way and has just extended booking in London to January 2026. Over the years the London production has starred some of our most popular performers, including Rachel Tucker, Kerry Ellis and Lucie Jones. The current cast includes Alexia Khadime and Lucy St Louis as Elphaba and Glinda and Ryan Reid as Fiyero – the first time people of colour have taken on the principal roles together in the West End production.
And now finally the film is here. Starring London’s own Cynthia Erivo, currently one win away from an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony – give the lady an Oscar!), putting on Elphaba’s iconic green face paint, and global pop superstar Ariana Grande as G(a)linda (The “Ga” is silent), the marketing hype has been turned up to 11 for weeks. Theatre fans across the country are busy stocking up on merch. There’s everything from branded drinks to lego figures, clothing and duvet sets to allow you to turn your bedroom into a swankified Shiz University dormitory.
To help you prepare for what is tipped to be the movie event of the year, a new documentary takes a deep dive into the Wicked universe. Wicked: The Real Story is made by filmmaker Robin Bextor and takes us through how L. Frank Baum’s 1900 story, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” has resonated with generations, leading to the iconic 1939 film starring Judy Garland, and now to the wonderful world of the Wicked musical.
It is a little dry at the start. The voice-over that talks about the life of writer L. Frank Baum is rather monotone and the experts a little underwhelming. We do, however, learn about the strong female influences in Baum’s life who led him to put a female protagonist (Dorothy Gale) at the centre of his story at a time when adventures were almost exclusively for male characters. We get some insight into Baum’s formative years, with education at a harsh military school giving him a hatred for authority figures. It also discusses how characters like the Scarecrow and Tin Man can be seen as representing the American agrarian movement and industrialisation – the common tropes of the early 20th Century.
There is, of course, discussion of the iconic 1939 film adaptation, bringing glorious technicolour to cinema audiences. There is maybe nothing new to learn about Judy Garland’s portrayal of Dorothy but there are interesting insights into the film’s production process and a fun fact: the film adaptation was the first time that the Wicked Witch became greenfied!
Where this documentary really comes to life and is a fascinating watch is in the interviews with Gregory Maguire, author of the novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” and with composer Stephen Schwarz, who wrote the glorious score that brought this novel to the stage.
Maguire talks eloquently about his inspiration, something that is later to become one of Glinda’s first lines in the musical, “Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” and goes on to talk about how he developed his story by looking at the timelines for both Baum’s book and the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie.
Stephen Schwarz offers a fascinating insight into how the stage musical was developed. He talks about Elphaba’s “Unlimited” theme and shows how its melody is a tribute to composer Harold Arlen’s unforgettable “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. It’s also fascinating to hear about how Glinda, a relatively minor character in the novel, has become an equal lead in the musical which is fundamentally about the relationship between the two women. He talks about how Glinda’s character development can be tracked through the changing vocal style and rhythms as the show progresses.
So, if you are looking to build your excitement for the Wicked movie with some background into the development of this fresh take on the magical land of Oz, it’s definitely worth taking a break from the merch hunting and trying to sing that Defying Gravity riff in the shower to watch Wicked: The Real Story. It’s thrillifyingly Ozmopoliton!
Wicked: The Real Story is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
★★★★
