Heyy everyone! How’s life for everyone? 🙂 It’s time to update the blog again and I can’t wait to share with you all my first experience of watching a west end musical theater show in London! So even before arriving in the UK, I’ve already heard of the amount of theaters in London and the amazing shows they put up in the theaters. It’s not the usual cinema theater kind of thing like Malaysia whereby we just enter a cinema hall and sit down staring at a big screen for movies (well, of course UK has this kind of cinema theater :P). The one that I’m talking about is a real theater performance, adapting shows from famous musicals such as Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, CATS, Lion King and etc, and of course the one that I watched was WICKED!

So after arriving in the UK, I have been longing to experience watching a west end show in London but never had the chance. Some of the best show that my friends and family has watched previously is Phantom of the Opera, Lion King and also WICKED whereby they are strongly recommended. As I always have the thing for fairy tales (still a young girl in heart 😛 ), WICKED was my first choice to ticked off my bucket list. And oh, did I forget to mention that WICKED has just celebrated their 10th anniversary in West End in Apollo Victoria theater which proves that the show is amazing to be able to air for such a long period! 🙂 As I’m living in London now, I made up my mind and bought my first west end show ticket!

For anyone of you that is interested in buying west end show ticket, do bear in mind that this is not similar like the ticket buying process for normal cinema ticket whereby its handled by a single company you just buy the ticket from the official website of the company. For west end shows, there are loads of ticket providers out there in the internet when you Google for the show name and some of them really provide tickets in a much cheaper rate. However, to be safe, I will suggest you all to do a bit of research of the credibility of the ticket provider before buying the tickets, or just buy it from the official ticket provider linked from the official website of the show (but the price will be a bit more expensive), or try Amazon tickets like where I bought mine from whereby its more cheaper but still reliable. 🙂 And oh, do remember to book your tickets early as the good seats will sell off quickly and tickets will be much expensive getting nearer to the date. 🙂

To give you all abit of idea on the story of WICKED, this musical tells about the untold story of the witches of Oz based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, an alternative telling of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum’s classic 1900 story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The musical shares the story of two unlikely friends, Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Galinda (whose name later changes to Glinda the Good Witch), who struggle through opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, Fiyero the Prince, their different reactions to the Wizard’s corrupt government and, ultimately, Elphaba’s public fall from grace and how Glinda the Good continues to manage the city of Oz in the end.

As this is my first time watching a west end show in a proper theater in London, I was super excited when the day finally came. I told my boss that I want to get off work earlier on the day to make sure that I arrive in time for the show. After taking a long 40 minutes tube ride from Harrow, I arrived in London Victoria station whereby Apollo Victoria theater where the show is held in was just beside the tube station. There were already a huge crowd when I arrived at the theater which proves the popularity of the show! While queuing up to collect my pre-booked ticket from the box office, I started to look around the place eagerly and was really amazed by how beautifully decorated the place and for one second I thought I was in the magical kingdom of Oz! 😛

After collecting the ticket, I walked into the theater happily while looking forward for the show to start. The theater hall was grand and the stage was really well decorated. The map of the Kingdom of Oz was shown as a backdrop on the stage while there is a Dragon that is hanging on top. An it was really impressive to see when the dragon actually moves during the performance! The performance started off with a celebration in relation to the death of the Wicked Witch of the West, whereby the citizens of Oz were cheering happily around Glinda the Good. The story then continued when one of the citizen ask Glinda the Good if the rumours about the friendship between the Wicket Witch and her was true, whereby the show takes a throwback style to tell the story of how the two witch meet, became friends and the ending.

The whole show lasted for about 2 hours and 45 minutes including a 15 minutes intermission. The show was indeed impressive and the story line, choreograph and actors was really amazing! I would really recommend the show as it’s really worth watching! Almost all the audience gave the actors a standing ovation for their incredible performance! Even it’s been few days already since I watch the show, I could still remember the songs of the show and every scene of the show is still clear in my mind! 🙂

Overall this experience is a really good one and I would really like to strongly recommend those of you that have the chance to come to London to watch this as it’s really amazing. And of course, this won’t be my last west end theater show and I’ll aim to watch Phantom of the Opera next!

So I guess this is all for today. 🙂 Hope you guys enjoy your week and see you all again next week!

Love xx

Adeline