Wicked offered me something important that is rarely seen these days [Video]

When I heard Wicked’s Elphaba belting ‘If I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free’, something in my mind fundamentally clicked into place.

The wonderful world of Oz has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. At an early age I fell in love with Dorothy and the Emerald City in L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s novel and wore the pages thin with constant re-reading. 

A few years later, I watched the 1939 film version in all its technicolour glory and felt an inexplicable yearning whenever I listened to Judy Garland’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow – a rendition that moves me to tears nearly every time I hear it. 

Little did I know that there was already a musical spinoff called Wicked that would soon become an incredibly important part of my adolescence and my discovery of self-empowerment.

Until then, in the big and small ways, Oz seamlessly …