Wicked the musical offers a spell-binding back story about Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. Sheridan Adams plays Elphaba in the new rendition of Wicked now showing at Sydney’s Lyric theatre. She is a strong lead but eclipsed by Courtney Monsma who was celebrated in the musical Frozen before taking on the role of Glinda the good witch.

Monsma steals the show with her comical timing, her presence on stage and her glittering costumes. She plays a dumb blonde but in no way is it a stereotype. She has some interesting expressions in her lines which at first may be “confusifying”.

Yet the new expressions in the land of Oz offer a well-rounded crafting of this fantasy world. Words such as “disgusticified”, “disrespectation”, “festivating”, “horrendible” all add to the humour. And with creation of language comes power.  As George Orwell famously stated ‘there is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language.’ The Orwellian themes of power and corruption reflect Animal Farm and 1984 in the corrupt officialdom in the merry old land of Oz.