Wicked the Musical #3 - the amazing Emma Hatton

Good evening / Good morning,

I don’t even know how to start this post because it’s something like 3am, but I am still over the moon and I feel like I’m defying gravity, just to stay on theme. I am warning anyone who is reading now: this post is about me fangirling over Emma Hatton and seeing her in “Wicked” – it’s for my personal record, I understand it’s not the most interesting story to read, and it’s pretty long :)

Tonight was special, tonight was amazing and I am so happy I keep feeling tears build up in my eyes. I know, it sounds silly, but you also have to understand that I have seen Emma Hatton perform and I have met her in person. Emma Hatton. The woman I have a fan page on, one of my top idols, the woman who sings pretty much all that I have been listening to lately... so yeah, I am excited, happy and still incredibly upbeat because of this. Emma Hatton! Emma is the current standby Elphaba (the Wicked Witch, aka the Green Girl) in London, even though she is going to become lead on the 2^nd of February :D As I have mentioned in all my previous posts about “Wicked” she is my absolute favourite and tonight was a incredible show for that very reason.

 

 

It all started with Emma being announced for the Friday night show on Tuesday and me organising with some of the people from the Wicked fandom on twitter to meet on that same day. We were such a nice group in the end! First of all I met up with Sophie, a huge Jennifer DiNoia fan, at 4.30pm at Victoria Station. We went to the Apollo Victoria theatre and stood outside stage door chatting and just freaking out about how amazing “Wicked” is and how incredible Jennifer and Emma are (reminder – Jennifer is my next favourite Elphaba AND the one I have seen twice). It was amazing, because we spent about 2 hours there in the cold, but I was fine because it was so exciting to be talking endlessly about our “addiction”! And Sophie is lovely!! We also found out we have the same Elphaba necklace :D

The same Elphaba ("Because I knew you") necklaces *_*

In the time we were there, technically waiting for Emma but since she didn’t show up we had to give up on her, we met a few members of the ensemble, some of the main cast and Savannah (Glinda). Gosh, we had this very embarrassing experience with a man that was looking through the window of the stage door waiting for someone and then he saw my programme and asked me: “Is it worth buying?” – we discussed the programme a bit and then we asked him if he was seeing the show and he said he had already seen it the previous night... so we were like “Oh, you have seen Jennifer then!” and he didn’t know who we were talking about so we told him she was “the green one” in the show. In that moment Savannah came out of the stage door and went straight to hug him, they were clearly friends, so we were so embarrassed because we couldn’t understand how someone who knows one of the two leading ladies personally wouldn’t know the other one at least by name... whatever, I still don’t get it -.-“ While Savannah was out there I also managed to give her the card I had written for her :)

Cards for Emma and Savannah

Around 6.30, Sophie and I went back into the station and to the Starbucks there and met also Cecilia, a huge Emma fan who has seen her pleeenty of times! At first I felt a bit shy having two people who had already met before and I wasn’t sure what to say, but then they were both so friendly and nice and we started talking and we were all incredibly excited about the evening :) During the afternoon I was soooo nervous about seeing Emma in the show, because until that moment I had only heard recordings of her and I was terribly worried I wouldn’t like her live Elphaba (acting-wise, etc...). I mean it, I was very very anxious. Eventually, other two joined us (Martin and Lauren) and we made our way to the theatre – we were all scattered around the theatre, but I was in first row in the very centre *_* It was my first time being central and I loved it! I barely spoke to Martin and Lauren before the performance, but Sophie and Cecilia were so cute and even excited for me because it was my first time seeing my favourite Elphaba... awwww! 

The show, meaning EMMA:

There’s no need for me to comment the show, because it was just as good as always in the whole. Just a note for records: some of the actors/actresses got the script wrong tonight and changed what they were meant to say (e.g. Madame Morrible going "she must be captured" instead of "she must be found and captured"). I am not commenting anything else about the show, but I have to comment on Emma.

On the very moment she set foot on stage I had tears in my eyes. She looks so petite and sweet in her young-Elphaba costume!! From the beginning, from the first time she spoke, I was in love with her. She is hilarious, her acting is incredible and her facial expressions and body language are indescribable. She makes for the perfect Elphaba, showing vulnerability mixed with power, with a lovely sweet touch added onto the Elphaba I was used to see with Jennifer.

Then she sung. “The Wizard and I” is already one of my favourite songs from the whole musical, but when she started singing I thought I would just melt there :P She is stunning, fantastic, capable of transmitting an enormous amount of emotions both with her voice and her movements! From that moment I couldn’t take my eyes off her, I observe all the little things that she does differently from Jennifer, I listened to her voice and I knew I had no reason to change my mind about my favourite Elphaba. In the interval I went to see Sophie and Cecilia and Cecilia and I were both with tears in our eyes and we were completely freaked out because of how amazing Emma was. Even Sophie, an hard-core Jennifer fan, had to admit she is incredible and that she found some things she does even better than Jennifer!

OMG Emma is perfection, pure magic and talent. She is incredible, definitely my favourite Elphaba! Her performance just made me so happy :) I could go on forever about how amazing she was, but I’ll just point out the highlights of Emma’s performance so I remember all of them:

• Elphaba introducing herself to the other students: her way of saying the funny lines when she is explaining her “verdigree” was too funny to hold back lots of laughs. My personal favourites were “Oh... do I have something stuck in my teeth?!” and then later to Madame Morrible “I’m the other daughter, Elphaba. I’m beautifully tragic” - her accent and her tone of voice were the best!
  
• Her riffs during “The Wizard and I” were magical, even if she doesn’t hold the “feeling things I’ve never felt” like Jennifer! Her last note was so long and so powerful... perfect way to make me love her from her very first song!
  
  
• In “What is this feeling?” I finally saw her and Savannah one next to the other and it was too cute to see how tiny Emma is! Savannah was literally looking down on her, both for being taller and being on heels haha I don’t know why, but I found it terribly cute - she looked so little and frail!
  
• Elphaba’s little dance in “Dancing through life” was the most hilarious I have ever seen, both live (well, I’ve only seen Jennifer’s live to be fair) and online :P Then it ended with the very sweet scene of Glinda and Elphie holding hands, becoming friends... and I melted!
  
• I always thought “Popular” to be Savannah’s song, because she is the best Glinda ever and makes it so funny, but this time I have to say that also Emma did her part. Unlike many other Elphaba’s I have looked at or seen, she actively participated with nods, shaking her head, making faces, laughing... and when she talks she actually sounds so realistic, not forced at all! Totally adored her in “Popular” *_* My favourite bit is when Glinda goes “Don’t make me laugh... no, don’t!” because during that little pause Emma actually starts laughing and then is reprimanded by Savannah and she suddenly goes back to having a serious face suddenly :P
  
• When Elphaba is running with Fiyero to save the lion cub, Emma made the most hilarious faces. Fiyero goes in the wrong direction: rolling eyes and pointing to the other side funnily. Fiyero says “Do you think I am really stupid?” and her “No! Not really stupid” comes out in a way that has everyone bursting out laughing. Gotta love her!
  
• I already loved Emma’s “I’m not that girl”, it’s one of my favourites from her, because of how sweet and heartbreaking she makes it sound, but seeing her interpret it in person brought it to a totally different level. She looked like a girl in love who can’t have, and barely can admit to herself that she wants, the boy she is in love with – and that’s exactly the role she is meant to interpret in that moment so I adore the fact that she is able of making that side of Elphie emerge! Most importantly though... she held the last note of the song and made it high! That’s how it’s originally meant to be, but no Elphaba I (or Sophie or Cecilia) know of has done it before, and even Emma hadn’t done it previously apparently, but it came out beautiful! Jennifer, and everyone else, normally keeps that last “girl” low, but she went for it and held it and I had starry eyes :D
  
• Emma’s “Defying Gravity” is the best one ever. Like, ever. I even had Sophie admit that Emma’s “it’s meeeee!” is perfect! She riffs so much and has so much power in her voice, which comes out particularly in this iconic song and I was amazed at seeing it live, from up close. To be honest, the girl sitting next to me started crying for how incredible Emma was (first time she was seeing Wicked, to be clear)! So glad I wasn’t the only one haha
  
• During “Wonderful” she imitated the Wizard’s “jazz hands” and, since I was waiting for it after Cecilia’s warning, I focused on her to notice that... I was almost the only one laughing at that stage but I couldn’t help it. Too cute!
  
• At the beginning of “As Long as You Are Mine” I thought she and Jeremy Taylor (Fiyero) didn’t have much of the chemistry I could see between him and Jennifer, but around the second stanza I had to change my mind because they started acting it out beautifully!!
  
• Elphie’s cry on her sister’s grave sounded so realistic! And then just after, there was the cat-fight scene, which was lovely haha Emma’s laugh after Glinda’s slap was hilarious and the whole scene was just too much to hold back :P “I know that for that blissful blonde brain of yours [...] someone like him could  choose someone like me!” Loved that bit, loved all the emotion that was thrown out in one single sentence.
  
• “Fiyeroooooooooo!”. The beginning scream of “No Good Deed” gave me chills down my spine – perfection!! She put so much emotion in the whole song and it’s such an impressive piece of music that I think I held my breath for most of it! She truly looked “Wicked” and the effect of the lights and the artificial wind on her cape made for an incredible scene *_*
  
• The whole “For good” sequence was heartbreaking, beautiful, emotional. Emma looked tiny beside Savannah, but seeing these two friends reunited, saying goodbye forever and telling each other how much they’ve been influenced by the other... tears were a must and mine were a mix of sadness for the story and happiness at how good Emma had been throughout the whole show!
  
• Eventually, though, it was time for the “Finale”... it was perfect, but all I could think of was “no, Emma, don’t go!” and then she left the stage and it was all over :( During the beginning of it, Jeremy (Fiyero) was holding and hugging Emma and it was sooooooo cute, especially because he is so much taller than her that he could actually lay his head on top of hers! Loved that :)
  
  
• Nope, it’s not the end yet... curtain call is an important part of the show! After clapping and cheering for all the cast, when Emma and Savannah came out there was a huge standing ovation in the theatre, but in the front row I was the only one who actually stood! In the back rows there were plenty of people doing it, but nobody at the front... it was kind of embarrassing being the only one, because I was right in front of Emma and Savannah and they actually looked at me! But they deserved that standing ovation, and even more :) When they started walking back to retreat, Emma made these cute little jumps while backing out and she had this huge smile on – she was so clearly excited about being on as Elphie after some time off!

Stage door time:

I caught up with Sophie and Cecilia just at the end of the show, all the three of us so thrilled and we were hugging and jumping around and giggling and quoting the show with Emma’s accent and tone haha Then we met also Martin and Lauren outside stage door and all together we waited. Gosh, I was excited!

In the wait!

I didn’t get any new signature from other ensemble people or other cast members, because I was mainly concentrating on Emma. She finally came out around 10.50pm and she was soooo adorable *_* Despite feeling like I could freeze and not talk to her, I managed to speak because I was in the middle of fans who were actually talking to her... I am so glad the others were there! I told her that she had been amazing and that it was my first time seeing her. So she asked me “Have you seen the show before?” and I was like “Yes, twice, but you are my favourite Elphaba!”... and she was the cutest person ever and smiled and answered “Aww that’s good to know!”. Then I gave her the card I had written for her (written before the show, but with an addition made during the interval – the first part only talked about her singing and the expectations I had on her, then during the interval I added how much I loved her acting, which I couldn’t know before as I had never seen her) and took a couple of pictures :) Sophie was so nice as to take a photo of us with her little Polaroid and this pretty little picture came out of it and I already have a tiny printed photo with Emma *_* Also, Emma signed both the standby sheet I handed to her (adding “Much love” before the signature!) and the programme, in the page where there’s a little paragraph about her :)

 

While Emma was still there, Savannah came out as well and she stopped for pictures with us and for a little chat – so sweet :D

Right, I think this is all I have to say, I am still excited and over the moon but I’d better try and get some sleep! I am so looking forward to the next time I see the show (31/01) and especially to the next time I see Emma (2/02) :D And I also can’t wait to see these lovely twitter people again, Cecilia and Sophie especially, as we promised one another we’ll keep in touch and meet up soon!