Packing ’em in

Wicked is a musical based on the early life of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. So what’s wrong with it, apart from the subject obviously? Well, if you go to a musical you don’t expect to spend three hours denied the pleasure of a hummable tune, a decent gag, an engaging storyline or any attempt at an ensemble dance routine. The bald, belt-’em-out singing style doesn’t help, nor does the gaudy declarative acting. On the plus side, the scenery is spectacular, and there’s a massive articulated dragon’s head over the stage which flexes its iron neck and creaks its metal jaws while racking out groans of pain. It’s very impressive until you spot a puffing stage-hand in the wings yanking on a rope-and-pulley system. The groans of pain are probably his. If I’d seen this show at an earlier stage I’d have told them to pack up and start again. But Wicked is doing great business. I went on a Tuesday night and the 2,400-seat Apollo theatre, triple the size of some West End venues, was a dozen bums short of a full house.

Clearly, I can’t spot a successful musical, so bear that in mind when I say that Postcards from God: The Sister Wendy Musical may be going places. Sister Wendy, the rabbit-toothed multi-tasking nun, held down a career as a BBC art historian while also spending 72 hours praying every day. The show is based, a little too closely, on the truth. Wendy is called to God while still in her teens and she takes orders as a ‘consecrated hermit and virgin’ with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. The convent’s atmosphere of euphoric innocence and slightly trippie religious certitude is superbly evoked.