Marlowe Youth Theatre's Review Page

Hello and welcome to MYT's page of theatre and live event reviews. Many of our members are currently undertaking their Arts Award and for part of this they are encouraged to see and review as many arts events as possible. By doing this they are expanding their theatrical knowledge, creating a healthy interest as a new young audience, and learning to have their own voice. All of the reviewers are aged between 11 and 16 and for many this is the first time they have reviewed. Please bear this in mind as you read their personal and interesting reviews.

Vicki Oliver
Wide Eyed Theatre

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Wicked; A Review by Clarissa Price

One word, Wicked!

Has to be one of the best musicals that i have ever seen. However it is not as good as everyone says, it still has its flaws. The main one for me was the briefness; at points the story was extremely vague and felt like it needed to be elaborated on a bit more for the audience to properly understand what was intended. The school was the main bit where this happened; why were they all at school? How did the sisters make these 'friends'? All of a sudden we had a second child and they were all at school. Why the Prince? And the sister in a wheelchair? It all seemed a bit too cliched and started perfectly. It needed to be be explained a little more rather than needing to be accepted. To me the whole story was made just to fit the Wizard of OZ. Another thing a green baby, seriously? Was it the poison that made her green? It was so confusing and it didn't make sense that the other girl was white, if the poison was the reason it needed to be made far more obvious as it was too subtle and you couldn't really even see the bottle on stage. At the time this all seemed fitting but then afterwards when reflecting in the performance I couldn't figure out what had just happened. It all seemed to easy like the playwright couldn't do any better.

Because of all this all the praise had to go to the actors and technical crew, during the performance you are so amazed at the complexity of their work you don't even notice how it doesn't add up. Now that's what I call genius. the lights were always on cue and flawless transitions you never noticed when the tech's roles switched or even the man in the setting controlling the dragons head. That was amazing you weren't expecting anything then this dragons head moved and roars at you much to your surprise, at first it looks all electronic but no a man in the setting pulling some ropes caused this massive metal dragons head to move and wings flap. The music was always on time and not a note wrong. Just perfect only if I could say the same about the storyline. I wish in the future I could be part of a production like that as it was a joy to watch the professional at work and admire their skills.