Review Roundup: What Did the Critics Think of THE WIZARD OF OZ at the London Palladium?

Starring Georgina Onuorah as Dorothy, award-winning comedian and musical theatre star Jason Manford as The Cowardly Lion, Diversity star Ashley Banjo as The Tin Man in his West End musical debut and The London Palladium legend Gary Wilmot as The Wizard and Professor Marvel, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Wizard of Oz has now opened at the London Palladium.

What did the critics think?

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Gary Naylor: BroadwayWorld: In a gingham dress with a beautifully animated (by puppeteer Ben Thompson) Toto, Georgina Onuorah gives us a bold and feisty heroine (reminding us just how far Judy Garland’s Dorothy was ahead of her time). She nails “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” with plenty of belt and indulges in a little flirting with The Scarecrow (a winning Louis Gaunt) with just the right amount of charm. Dorothy May not be a witch, but she’s a young woman rather than a girl, and that lends an equality of status to the four friends on their trek down the famous road.

Arifa Akbar: The Guardian: The central conceit for the story is inspired: Dorothy (Georgina Onuorah) is an outsider, at odds with the community in Kansas, which might be gesturing to America’s pre-civil rights history of segregation, and all its exclusions. She is innocent yet steely, and Onuorah has a truly glorious voice, leaving us with goosebumps in her numerous renditions of Over the Rainbow.

Marianka Swain: London Theatre: Dianne Pilkington is a deliciously vampy femme fatale of a Wicked Witch, playing brilliantly off the enthralled younger viewers. Though generally the added Webber/Rice songs don’t make much impact, Pilkington has a blast with her big villain number “Red Shoes Blues”. Gary Wilmot is excellent as the fraudulent Oz; likewise, his panto experience shows in his easy way with an audience.

Paul Vale: The Stage: Some of the wistful nuance and the magic seem to have been lost along the way. Colin Richmond’s distorting set design relies heavily on overenthusiastic projections from Douglas O’Connell. Richmond’s set takes us from Depression-era Kansas to a 1950s-inspired Oz, but it never quite takes off – literally. The tornado scene, featuring projections and a spinning door-frame, lacks that sense of danger. 

Alex Wood: WhatsOnStage: Director Nikolai Foster knows that, if you’re presenting a beloved musical at The London Palladium, you either have to go big or go home. While The Wizard of Oz also proves that yes, there’s no place like home, Foster has also wholeheartedly gone big in this neon-lit Americana extravaganza of a revival, which looks like a tribute to equal parts God’s Own Junkyard and MGM backlot.

Nick Curtis: Evening Standard: Well, that was exhausting. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of the iconic 1939 musical film fantasy is a relentlessly professional piece of entertainment, with the feelgood sentiment bolted on. Georgina Onuorah’s full-throated, tough-cookie Dorothy yomps through a steampunk 1950s version of Oz that also has overtones of contemporary late-stage capitalism, mostly created through back projection and garish costumes.

The Wizard of Oz is at the London Palladium until 3 September

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

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