To not wholly rapturous reviews, the movie Wicked, the prequel to The Wizard of Oz, is released this week. Tragically, it’s too late for Halloween, so we can expect alienated witches of colour (green) based on Cynthia Erivo to be absolutely everywhere by Christmas. For anyone who loved the Wizard of Oz, 1939 version, this is one to miss.
Could there be any narrative more forward looking, more of our time, than this little story of gender transition?
But, in a spirit of goodwill, let me put a better idea to Universal, the studio behind the film. They have missed a trick. L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, did, in fact, write umpteen sequels to the first story; it’s the first of these, The Marvellous Land of Oz (1904), which simply calls out for adaptation; the last time it was attempted was a musical in 1981. But that was before anyone realised how miraculously Mr Baum anticipated the mood of the moment 120 years on.
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