The Wizard of Oz: Joseph Rowntree Theatre
The West End follows where York leads, and just months before The Wizard of Oz opens in a new production at the London Palladium, here’s our very own northern version of one of the world’s favourite musicals.
This show by York Musical Theatre Company at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre is a joyous, colourful, exuberant romp through fantasy land…and safely back home again, of course. It’s a very weird and wonderful show, and there’s terrific emphasis here on both the weird and the wonderful.
A really talented cast is led by sweet-voiced Sadie Sorensen as Dorothy although initially the show stealer is Toto, a proper canine character who, I’m reliably informed, in the real world is a King Charles cross spaniel called Daisy. Here’s where the heart strings are pulled straight away, with the threat of being separated from your own dog.
And then, as Daisy is replaced by a puppet (there must be something in the doggy actors’ union about length of time on stage), Toto stars again with Adam Gill as an excellent puppeteer. Just focus on him for a few moments and you’ll see what we mean.
But back to the valiant team heading along the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City in search of, respectively, a brain, a heart and a nerve. This is a fabulous quartet with Rachel Higgs (Scarecrow), Zander Fick (Tinman) and Daan Janssen (Lion) joining Dorothy in the quest to meet the Wizard (Martyn Hunter) and foil the beastly wickedness of the Witch of the West (Jeanette Hunter, who had earlier been equally beastly as Miss Gulch).
They sure can sing, and they can dance pretty fine too, but then you look at the CV of director and choreographer Kathryn Addison and realise that here’s an exceptionally talented team being led by one of the best in the business. A team that includes the most colourful and delightful singing and dancing Munchkins you’ll ever see.
Wonderful, and weird. Wizard is a very odd tale, but then all good fairy tales are odd. And like all works of genius it has appeals on many different levels. Here it was the Poppies, oh those nice pretty ladies who have made the travellers fall asleep. It’s scary, as all good fairy tales ought to be, but show me a Tin Man who has been scarred for life by a jug of lubricating oil, and I’ll turn you into a witch. A good one, though, like Glinda (Elizabeth Gardner), and we all know what kind of star SHE turned into.
Stagey Lady is very taken with the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, a venue managed and operated by volunteers, run by the community for the community. Lots of astonishing things happen here including, I’m told, the best pantomime in the north, and they have big plans to make their space a really special facility for recreation and education, where the local community can come together.
They are continually fundraising just to keep the place going, but now they want to build a garden room extension, with better loos (they’re actually fine) and a proper bar area. At the moment you go outside to a fairground-stall-type of mobile unit to buy a glass of wine or a fruity cider. But inside it is real theatre-land, a delightful and slightly worn auditorium, a green velvet curtain, a stage with a fabulously imaginative set.
You might still fancy heading to the London Palladium, and all the fuss of getting to London, but pretty please, take a look at this Wizard if you’re in York this week.
Runs till Saturday. Details and tickets: https://www.josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/all-shows/the-wizard-of-oz/2678
Stagey Lady 