The Wizard of Oz at The London Palladium: Review

As Ado Annie she was the best thing in a dismal deconstructed Oklahoma! and here brings a feisty, pigeon-toed vulnerability to Dorothy from Kansas who lands in Oz.

The warmth of her smile, and soaring vocals in Somewhere over the Rainbow will pierce your heart. Onuorah, and a puppet Toto, are the emotional heart of a show whose dizzying pace and scattergun visuals can be overwhelming.

Jason Manford plays the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz at The London Palladium. (Image: Marc Brenner)

Swooping video projections take us across the Kansas plains, along the Yellow Brick Road to a Vegas-like Emerald City. The road itself is three trucks bearing yellow arrows, that zoom across the stage, and there's barely a pause for the four friends' Emerald City makeover, or soporific brush with danger - here in the Poppy Hotel rather than field.

Louis Gaunt is sweetly dim with great floppy physicality as Scarecrow, Ashley Banjo supplies terrific robot body popping and weak vocals as Tin Man, and comedian Jason Manford does a passable impression of Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion in the 1939 MGM Musical.

Ben Thompson as Toto and Georgina Onuorah as Dorothy. (Image: Marc Brenner)

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice pad out the film's well-remembered songs by Harold Arlen and EY Harburg (Ding Dong The Witch is Dead, The Merry Old Land of Oz, We're Off to See The Wizard) with their most memorable contribution Glinda and Dorothy's heartfelt duet Already Home.

Dianne Pilkington channels panto villain vibes as the Wicked Witch, doubling as the nasty Ms Gulch, whose threat to turn Uncle George and Aunt Em off their farm after Toto bites her takes on a sinister edge in Jim Crow-era dustbowl America.

Gary Wilmot supplies reliable comic timing as the Wizard, and Rachael Canning's eye-popping inventive costumes come into their own in slick high energy company numbers in Munchkinland and Oz.

Dianne Pilkington as The Wicked Witch of the West. (Image: Marc Brenner)

Colin Richmond's sets have a gaudy steampunk aesthetic and if none of the visuals cohere - Christina Bianco's Glinda on a pink Barbie scooter with mobile phone wand? - it's a thoroughly efficient slice of West End entertainment.

I might quip 'if it only had a heart,' but thanks to Onuorah, it just about does.

Garty Wilmot as The Wizard of Oz. (Image: Submitted by Venue Cymru)

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