Here’s Rachel Tucker singing “The Wizard and I” at the “West End Live 2010″ festival in London’s Leicester Square last weekend:

Wow!

Rachel Tucker – The Wizard and I

And here’s the backstage interview conducted by Keith Martin of Leicester Square TV with Rachel Tucker of Wicked herself:

In the interview, Rachel Tucker describes how Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Loosely based on the Wizard of Oz Wicked has a kind of twist to it. It’s the story of how the good witch and the bad witch became enemies, so Dorothy has nothing really to do with it. It’s an amazing moral story highly relevant to anybody who has ever been bullied or discriminated against just for being different.

Drew Barrymore

Barrymore has been developing the project for years, and at one point appeared set to play Dorothy’s great-great-granddaughter, who learns to use the ruby slippers’ power when the Wicked Witch unexpectedly returns to take over Oz and the earth. It’s unclear if Barrymore will still take the role or just direct.

Now “Surrender Dorothy” is just one out of five “Oz” films that have been reported as being in development recently, following the big box-office success of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.”

Possible films include “Oz the Great and Powerful,” a Disney project that would show how the Wizard came to Oz. There may also be a film version of “Wicked“, the musical prequel to Wizard of Oz. Wicked the musical has been fabulously successful on Broadway and in the London West End.

Danielle is not guaranteed to play the following performances of Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium on:

Tuesdays.

The winner’s annual holidays have also been reserved as:

Week commencing 2nd May 2011
Week commencing 5th September 2011
Week commencing 12th September 2011

Of course nothing can really be guaranteed and in the event of illness etc the part of Dorothy will be played by an understudy but if you want the best possible chance of seeing Danielle Hope in the role then avoid booking Wizard f of Oz tickets or theatre breaks for a Tuesday or those three weeks in May and September next year.

Danielle Hope

On Sunday night’s Over The Rainbow, Sierra Boggess performed the title song from the new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Love Never Dies

Sierra Boggess

Danielle Hope

Danielle’s Performance on Saturday

Steph Fearon

Steph’s performance of Rule The World

Sophie Evans

Sophie’s Performance of Reflection

Lauren Samuels

Lauren’s performance of Heaven.

Dorothy Duets

Ins the first duet duel of the night, Sophie and Steph sang I’m Gonna Was That Man Right Out of My Hair, and then

Lauren and Danielle performed a duet version of Popular from the hit Oz musical, Wicked.

He said:

This is the most difficult show I’ve had to cast. Joseph, Oliver and Maria all came from established theatre productions which are huge hits.

The Wizard Of Oz has been done before, but it’s never worked properly because they’ve tried to recreate the movie too closely.

I’m essentially writing a whole new musical with some of the greatest songs ever written and composing completely new music for it.

There’s at least half a dozen new songs.

So that’s a tantalising insight into what the forthcoming London production at The Palladium promisies. A new musical with half a dozen new songs, a fantastic Dorothy (no matter who wins) all based on but not recreating the original American story.

Tickets are on sale in May 2010

A statement from Andrew Lloyd Webber has confirmed that theatre tickets for the show at the London Palladium will go on-sale from May 8th 2010

**  Buy Wizard Of OZ London Tickets NOW! **

The musical will be booking until March 20th 2011 and Lord Lloyd Webber said it will feature “a few surprises along the way” to the Emerald City.

With Emilie, Dani, Bronte and Amy having been discounted from playing Dorothy in the new London production of Wizard of Oz, the seven remaining Dorothy contenders are Stephanie Davis, Lauren Samuels, Danielle Hope, Jessica Robinson, Steph Fearon, Jenny Douglas and Sophie Evans.

Danielle Hope

Danielle Hope, 17, from Manchester

Danielle performs Cry Me A River

Cry Me A River  is truly one of the best songs you could hope for, but I wasn’t too keen on the orchestration of  this one, nevertheless Danielle’s fantastic voice really does do it justice. This Dorothy contender has genuine star quality, the real thing.

Jenny Douglas

Jenny Douglas, 18, from Scotland

Jenny performs Warwick Avenue

Jenny has endeared herself to us with her quirky performances and cute personality. I can imagine her as Dorothy, in fact I can imagine getting some cheap seats at the back of the upper circle for Wizard of Oz in London and still getting a great performance from Jenny.

Lauren Samuels

Lauren Samuels, 22, from London

Lauren performs Nobody Knows

Sophie Evans

Sophie Evans, 17, from Wales

I’m afraid Sophie must be the favourite for being dropped next week, but such is the high standard in this show this is still great to listen to.

Sophie sings Love Song

Stephanie Davis

Stephanie Davis, 17, from Merseyside

Stephanie sings Nobody Does It Better.

Stephanie has a brilliant voice and must be one of the top contenders

Jessica Robinson

Jessica Robinson, 18, from Middlesborough

Along with Jenny, Jessica has the kind of facial expressions that can project to the back of a large theatre and therefore can be envisioned playing Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, no problem. In this case, the singing and dancing is all there too.

Jessica performs There Youll Be

Steph Fearon

Steph Fearon, 21, from London

Steph sings Use Somebody

Steph stands out for being a little shorter, an experienced, natural performer and well supported from South London! Sh started out with a full on R & B singimg style but has shown she can take the training and direction required for the West End stage where I’m sure she’ll end up. Not necessarily as Dorothy though.