Wicked evaluate: It’s a superb spectacle, which calls for to be seen on the largest display potential writes BRIAN VINER

Wicked 

Rating:

The Royal Festival Hall in London must have seen some sights in its 70-odd years but possibly nothing quite like Monday evening’s European premiere of Wicked, at which the lucky members of the audience were those not seated behind the drag queens dressed as Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. 

There were a lot of them, and they all seemed to be at least 6ft tall, not even taking account of the beehive hairdos.

The stage musical Wicked, notional prequel to The Wizard Of Oz, by all accounts has a huge gay following and Jon M Chu’s eagerly-awaited film adaptation, conspicuously targeted at least partly at the same demographic, is a riot of camp. 

When it finally came to an end on Monday evening, a rapturous standing ovation all but raised the roof.

It had been a long time building. Chu’s exuberant film lasts two hours and 40 minutes, and leaves the story only half-finished. 

Wicked Part Two is scheduled for release this time next year.

I saw the musical on Broadway not long after it first opened (my wife and I extravagantly took our three children, which as I recall cost about the same as a medium family saloon). 

From what I remember of the original, the film cleaves to it very closely – unsurprisingly, as one of the screenwriters is Winnie Holzman, who wrote the stage version. 

But Chu also makes the most of all available cinematic bells and whistles. It’s a fabulous spectacle, which demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

It begins at the end, with Glinda (Ariana Grande) announcing to the long-suffering people of Oz the death of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), better known as the fearsome Wicked Witch of the West. 

But then some impertinent citizen raises the rumour that she and Elphaba were once friends. It is true, she confirms. And so back we are whisked to their respective origin stories, and to the way in which they first bonded.

As anyone who has seen the stage musical will be aware, Wicked cleverly evokes The Wizard of Oz by exploring how the kindly but misunderstood Elphaba discovers her dark side and how the manipulative Glinda finds her inner goodness. 

It’s simply a variation of of Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow looking for a brain in the unforgettable1939 picture, and Jack Haley’s Tin Man looking for a heart.

To the outside world, alas, and even to her own parents, Elphaba is defined by the fact that she was born green. 

Her father, the governor of Munchkinland, can hardly bear to look at her, and it is really by accident that she gains a place at Shiz University, where Glinda is among the same student intake.

There, the only person to recognise the decency and talent in Elphaba, and Glinda’s inner slyness, is college principal Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). 

The absurdly handsome Prince Tigelaar (Jonathan Bailey), while at first appearing to fall for the enticingly enigmatic Elphaba, soon has his head turned, like almost everyone else, by the dazzlingly pretty, popular Glinda.

Chu and the writers have enormous fun with all this and are superbly served by the cast: Erivo and Grande are both pitch-perfect and altogether sensational. 

I confess to finding Wicked’s songs a little repetitive but it’s hard to imagine anyone delivering them better than those two, while Grande has proper comedic flair, which she brings to bear every time Glinda tosses her luxuriant tresses. 

Yeoh, Bailey and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard offer splendid support.

There will doubtless be suggestions that it’s all a bit derivative, and certainly Hogwarts got there first as a school of sorcery; inevitably, there are numerous parallels. 

But it’s done with such tremendous pizazz, and the sets and costumes are so gloriously, preposterously, over the top, that I just about forgave the insanely long running-time and didn’t even object when a drag queen built like a prop forward, wearing a pink taffeta dress, leapt up with such excitement at the end that he elbowed me in the eye.