The Wiz review: The cult retelling of The Wizard of Oz is given a perky if diluted update

Matthew Xia’s production is a welcome revival, but one that at times struggles to fill the stage of Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre

Tarik Fimpong (Scarecrow), Cherelle Williams (Dorothy), Jonathan Andre (Lion), Llewellyn Graham (Tinman) in ‘The Wiz' at Hope Mill Theatre (Pamela Raith)

It’s been a decade since The Wiz, the 1975 cult musical retelling of The Wizard of Oz, was seen on a British stage – and it seems smart programming by Hope Mill to revive it with an entirely black cast, creative and producing team, as a lively Christmas offering.

Matthew Xia’s production bills itself as its own “radical” retelling of The Wiz, promising a contemporary black British update on the African-American original. This also sounds smart – but the interventions are often too small to properly register, at times literally: Kansas becomes the name of Dorothy’s urban tower block, but this concept is only really indicated by the labelling on a tiny paper model of an estate. Footage of Black Lives Matter protests plays before the show starts, then such context vanishes. The (rather cheesy) book doesn’t seem much altered. As an update, it all feels pretty diluted.

More successful is Sean Green’s inventive re-scoring. Don’t worry: there’s no scrimping on the tasty funk and soul grooves of the original – with the musical’s breakout hit number, “Ease on Down the Road”, still a total banger and persistent ear-worm. But Green updates the toe-tapping score, too, deliberately drawing on different genres from across the African diaspora. Some of the most sparkling moments are when the cast floods the stage as emerald green club kids voguing, or dancing in joyful sync to a highlife version of “A Brand New Day”.

There are many perky, winning performances: Cherelle Williams’s dungaree-wearing Gen Z Dorothy has just the right guileless eagerness without tipping into twee. Tarik Frimpong as Scarecrow, Llewellyn Graham as Tin Man and Jonathan Andre as the cowardly Lion all bring slick moves and physical comedy chops, with Andre a particular treat as the mane-tossing, purrfectly camp Lion. Anelisa Lamola and Bree Smith play the good witches as an enjoyable pair of headscarf-wearing, hip-rolling kindly aunties.

But despite the dinky size of this fringe theatre’s stage, at times Xia’s production struggles to fill it. Leah Hill’s choreography is suitably popping, and Simon Kenny’s neon graffiti spray-painted walls provide a neat urban take on Oz’s glorious Technicolor – but in general, there’s a lack of world-building. Without the mad elaborate sets of the film (in 1978, the most expensive film ever made) or a bigger-budget musical, the wonder of Dorothy’s journey is distinctly lacking. Of course, creating a fantastical land and an emerald city is a challenge at this scale, but the production fails to find smart workarounds, meaning that the storytelling itself can become muddy.

This may not matter to die-hard fans of the film, but it makes Dorothy’s journey of self-discovery oddly drifting and contextless to anyone assessing this production on its own merits. Matters are not helped by having audience members lining the stage, only to be mostly ignored by the actors.

Cameron Bernard Jones (The Wiz) in ‘The Wiz’ (Pamela Raith)

The lack of stage wizardry particularly hamstrings, well, the Wizard himself: there is no curtain to see behind here. When we first meet the great and powerful Oz, Cameron Bernard Jones just has a bit of vocal echo on his voice. No imposing light show, effects, or even smoke and mirrors. Given that he looks like an ordinary man in a green robe, it’s no great surprise when the Wizard does indeed turn out to be just an ordinary man – which robs the second half of some necessary tension.

Not wholly wonderful, then, but this is nonetheless a welcome revival, which brings a whirl of colour to the stage and breathes fresh life into an already irresistible score.