Review – The Wizard of Oz, London Palladium

Featuring TV’s Danielle Hope as Dorothy and Bill Kenwright as the Harbinger of Doom.

We were astonished to read that co-producer Mister Bill Kenwright had been treading the Palladium boards as warm-up man for Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s new production of The Wizard of Oz. Frankly, it seemed unlikely.

But it is true.

It was true on Tuesday evening, anyway. There he was, reminiscing about Sunday Night at the London Palladium, talking up the quality of the orchestra, the beauty of the sets and the “zillions” (which must mean TWOO has now outstripped Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark as the most expensive musical of all time) spent on the double stage revolve.

Stopping just short of slapping a thigh he encouraged the crowd to sing along, clap, cheer, scream and boo the wicked witch before casually dropping in the fact that Michael Crawford wouldn’t actually be giving his wonderful Wizard or his Professor Marvel. Or his Emerald City doorman, come to that. It’s times like this make you wish for the simple white slip poking out of your programme.

The cause? Not mere laryngitis but “blood on his nodules”, apparently – a medical detail that perhaps unsurprisingly failed to whip the crowd much further into the desired state of frenzy but which did cause the Whingers to kick themselves for not packing the WEW Patent Rectal Thermometer.

An economically monickered understudy called “Zeph” (usually “Munchkin Mayor/Ensemble”) would be stepping into Mister Crawford’s beret.

Review – Educating Rita, Menier Chocolate Factory

Who is she? Who is she? This whispered question echoed around the auditorium as the audience filed out of the Sunday matinee preview of Educating Rita, part of the Willy Russell season at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

“She” is Laura Dos Santos. Previous theatre credits include: We Will Be Gone (Camden People’s Theatre), Look Back In Anger (Jermyn Street), Stags And Hens (Royal Court Liverpool), On The Middle Day (Old Vic), In Your Hands (New End Theatre) and The Morris (Liverpool Everyman)*.

No, we were none the wiser either but it’s extremely unlikely anyone will be asking “Who is she?” for long. For Miss Dos Santos has seized the part of Rita from our memory of Julie Walters’ grasp and inhabited it so completely and confidently and with such comic and dramatic aplomb that no-one in the auditorium could do much more than ask to each other blankly “Who is she?” in disbelief that she isn’t already a household name.