Elphaba gets involved with Doctor Dillamond’s research into the differences between animals and Animals, the latter being those that possess sapience and can take jobs among humans. There she meets Galinda, the snooty social-climbing wannabe-sorceress Doctor Dillamond, one of their teachers who happens to be a Goat and Fiyero, a prince from another land who is handsome but nervous about being in a new environment. Soon enough though, Elphaba is old enough to attend Shiz, a hugely prestigious university in Gillikin country. Born with razor-sharp teeth and a pathological fear of water, as well as her verdant skin, Elphaba is an anomaly too far, and the family move out to Quadling country where she can be raised without drawing too much attention. Her parents, the devoutly religious Frex and the flighty, flirty Melena are suspicious and find it very difficult to love the child, whom they name Elphaba. Starting years before Dorothy blows into Oz and meets her rag-tag bunch of friends, a baby girl is born in Munchkinland with bright green skin, something never seen before. But in Wicked, we get to see the events of The Wizard of Oz from a completely new angle. And in last year’s After Alice, he explores the effects Alice had on Wonderland once she’d gone.

In Mirror, Mirror, he reveals the motivations of Snow White’s stepmother. In Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, he shows us another version of Cinderella’s tale. Gregory Maguire, however, has a habit of producing novels that show us another version of events. One I’ve always been particularly fond of is Wicked, which I last saw in March earlier this year. It feeds into my minor obsession with the fact that there are two sides to every story, and often we only hear one of them. If I’m not reading, I do enjoy the theatre, particularly a good musical. “A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.”

Wicked by Gregory Maguire