West End hit Wicked heads to Birmingham Hippodrome

It features Amy Ross as Elphaba, Helen Woolf as Glinda, Aaron Sidwell (best known as ‘Steven Beale’ in EastEnders) as Fiyero, Steven Pinder (best known as ‘Max Farnham’ in Brookside) as The Wizard & Doctor Dillamond, Kim Ismay as Madame Morrible, Emily Shaw as Nessarose and Iddon Jones as Boq. Nikki Bentley is Standby for Elphaba.

Amy is thrilled to take the lead and says playing Elphaba is a dream come true.

“Well, we found out five or six months before starting rehearsals that we had the roles, so that was really a lovely amount of time to start singing the songs. Also just to build up a stamina, because once you’re up and running you’re doing eight shows a week. If you’ve already sung them into your voice and into the muscle, it makes it a lot easier once you’re up and running.”

It’s the most challenging role that she’s ever played because it stretches her both as a singer and an actress.

“As an acting role, Elphaba’s journey that she goes through from start to finish is huge. You start the show hopeful, young, happy about this new university and things might be different here. And obviously, she goes through lots of hard times from start to finish and by the end is hardened by a lot of it. She’s much darker by Act Two, so it does stretch you. But that’s why I love it – because it is such a great challenge.”

The show also brings with it enormous pressure because of the sheer number of people who go to see the show.

“Yes. I think you want to honour the wonderful, fantastically talented women who have played the role before. You want to live up to that and do it justice. So, that does add pressure but again its something to embrace and it’s a great challenge. It should never be easy

“When I was training at college in musical theatre, Wicked had just come out on Broadway and it was this new show that everyone was listening to. We were all listening to the CD so before seeing it, I was already completely in love with it.

“The score is just epic and so exciting. It was wonderful to go and see it when it came to the West End and go ‘Ah, that’s why she does that in that song and how that happens. I don’t think there are many musical theatre actresses who wouldn’t want to play Elphaba’.

People connect strongly with the show and Ross puts plenty of effort into each performance. She spends 30 minutes getting on her green make-up and enjoys being on the road.

“I’ve got a husband and a cat that I will miss, but what’s nice is that we kind of bed down in each place for a month, sometimes six weeks, so that makes it less tiring. I’ve done tours before where you change every week.”

The show is already the 15th longest running show in West End theatre history and is now in its 12th year at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre, where it continues an open-ended run. Around the world, Wicked has been seen by almost 55 million people in 16 countries and won over 100 major awards, including ten theatregoer-voted WhatsOnStage Awards (winning ‘Best West End Show’ on three occasions) and two Olivier Audience Awards.

Based on the acclaimed, best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire that ingeniously re-imagines the stories and characters created by L. Frank Baum in ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, Wicked tells the incredible untold story of an unlikely but profound friendship between two sorcery students.

Their extraordinary adventures in Oz will ultimately see them fulfil their destinies as Glinda The Good and the Wicked Witch of the West. Acclaimed as ‘a thrilling theatrical experience with brains, heart and courage’, Wicked transports audiences to a stunningly re-imagined world of Oz, providing wonders beyond the imagination.

Wicked recounts the bond between two young women who first meet as sorcery students at Shiz University: the blonde and very popular Glinda and a misunderstood green girl named Elphaba.

Following an encounter with The Wizard, their friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives take very different paths. Glinda’s unflinching desire for popularity sees her seduced by power while Elphaba’s determination to remain true to herself, and to those around her, will have unexpected and shocking consequences for her future.

Their extraordinary adventures in Oz will ultimately see them fulfil their destinies as Glinda The Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

The show has music and lyrics by multi Grammy and Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Disney’s Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Enchanted and, for DreamWorks, The Prince of Egypt) and is based on the novel ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’ by Gregory Maguire and adapted for the stage by Winnie Holzman (My So-Called Life). Musical staging is by Tony Award-winner Wayne Cilento and the production is directed by two-time Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello.