Something Wicked comes Melbourne's way

Elphaba performs the awesome Defying Gravity number, the most goosebump-inducing moment of the show. Photo / Supplied

It was a dark and stormy night in Melbourne, the winds howling, spotlights shooting up into the scudding clouds, helicopters circling above. Despite the chill of winter, the bare trees along Collins St were lit up like green, verdant lamps as a long line of Munchkins, many also dressed in green, scuttled, giggling, along the footpath.

Melbourne has gone green but not - in this case - in the conservation sense. Instead, its trams, street banners, billboards, even bank windows, are blanketed with the image of a green-faced witch - Elphaba, star of the big new musical in town, Wicked.

The trail of Munchkins - in reality, the audience who had just been to the lavish premiere of Wicked at the Regent Theatre, also on Collins St - headed immediately afterwards to the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins and its enchanted pink ballroom full of swirling mist where they quaffed bright green magic potions and partied hard. The cocktails, called Defying Gravity, lived up to their name as the revels thumped on until dawn. For some, negotiating their way out of the hotel's entrance way proved a tricky business. A pity they didn't have their broomsticks.

The post-premiere party was an intimate affair, Melbourne-style, with 1900 guests and 10,000 canapes, designed to attract maximum media coverage and just one aspect of a carefully orchestrated marketing plan to bring tourists to town to enjoy a Wicked night out.

But you can't base such a massive campaign on a product which doesn't live up to the hype. Despite my innate indifference towards musicals in general, Wicked proved to be a slick yet refreshing show aimed at adults and children alike, something you can take the whole family to. Happily, the kids in the opening night audience seemed entirely enthralled, even if they did have to take the occasional toilet break during the three-hour show. And the 2162-seat Regent Theatre, which opened in 1929, has the perfect Rococo ambience for the wildly imaginative musical.

If Wicked co-producer John Frost's predictions come true, as voiced at a more intimate cocktail party for NZ media the night before, the spectacle will boot up the city's already thriving tourist trade. (According to Victoria Premier John Brumby, Melbourne grew its domestic tourism by 5.5 per cent last year, to 6.7 million visitors, as opposed to 1.7 per cent across other states).

At this point in time, the Melbourne production has cost $12.5 million to stage, with $10 million worth of tickets sold already, nearly 30 per cent from outside the state of Victoria. The ANZ Bank alone has backed it to the tune of $1 million. Frost says Wicked is in the city for the long haul - eight years, possibly even a decade. Because it is a complicated, props-heavy staging, he doesn't want to tour it and adds that Sydney has only just woken up to the fact that Wicked is a proven tourist puller. He had some pretty harsh words to say about that slack attitude - and Frost is a Sydney-sider.

But what is so special about Wicked, a "prequel" to The Wizard of Oz? It has impressive statistics as a multi-Emmy Award winner which started life in New York and has been franchised into parallel productions in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo and Stuttgart, attracting audiences of more than 13 million and grossing more than $1 billion.