Review: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Radio 4

“How am I going to get back to Kansas?”

Following on from the less than sucessful adaptation of Goldfinger that left me cold, I was a little trepidatious about listening to this production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, especially as it soon came to light that it also featured narration – one of the things I disliked most about the Bond play – but it actually proved to be much more engaging and thoughtful, and ultimately considerably more entertaining. Linda Marshall Griffiths’ dramatisation has taken a fresh new look at the story, returning to L Frank Baum’s source novel and thereby casting off much of the baggage that might have come otherwise from just being a straight run of the film.

What we get then, is a highly atmospheric story, partly told by Amelia Clarkson’s excellent Dorothy as part of an inner monologue, which feels darker and more compelling that one might have expected. It is all largely recognisable, but it felt so much fresher here and interesting too. Emma Fielding was great value for money as all of the female characters, and Kevin Eldon, Burn Gorman and Zubin Varla all did well as the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Lion respectively. And Clarkson captured the right note of youthful gumption to make Dorothy a thoroughly likeable heroine.

But the real star was Olly Fox’s original music as part of Steve Brooke’s overall sound design which really opened my eyes (and ears) as to how evocative radio work can be, and really established the identity of this story as something different to what we know, or thought we knew, of Oz. I just need to get round to blogging these a bit quicker so I can recommend them whilst they are still available on the iPlayer!

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