Nothing is quite what it seems. Despite popular belief, there are usually far more than two sides to any scenario.

I am not quite sure what young children would make of this film: it is actually quite a complicated storyline. It is a long way from the conventional good versus bad of a panto or traditional fairy tale. But that, I suspect, is the whole point of this film: there is very little in life that is all good or all bad, there is a bit of both in all of us … and it depends whose perspective you are looking at it from!

As you would expect from Ariende Grande and Cynthia Erivo, the singing is wonderful and helps a lot with portraying the general mood and flow of the movie. At well over two hours it packs a lot in.

For me, a good film needs to both entertain and to offer some lessons, some insights. Wicked: for Good certainly does both of these. The CGI is slick and characterisations well crafted, and both blended with some hard truths about society. For example, when Elphaba says to Glinda words to the affect that ‘I am bad so that you can be good’, reflecting how Western society is so attached to an either:or mentality. Eastern philosophy, of course, embraces extremes and opposites: the Yin and Yang of Life itself, and within each of us, naturally. But we in the West have, for too long, had to pin these labels onto an individual. Maybe, just maybe, this film would help young viewers, subconsciously perhaps, to face the reality that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ can coexist in each and all of us.

Likewise, although for me, this element of the storyline could have been stronger, so many of the traditional fables have one hero (or, thankfully, nowadays, heroine) who solves all the problems of whichever make-believe land we happen to be in. It has been dawning on me for some time that this way of thinking is a big part of why our human land is in such a mess. We rely on the Trumps and Farages, or big business bosses, or ‘science’ to solve our problems when, in fact, they are our, personal, responsibility. Like Glinda, we too, I’m finding, need to learn how to be ‘response-able’, to find and use our own inner magic … and not pin all our trust on The Wizard.

In the case of The Wizard here, of Oz, when encouraged to own up to the lies he’s been telling Ozians, he is very candid: ‘they wouldn’t believe me’, he says. Ozians, like us Earthlings who they are presumably reflecting, are very good at believing what we want to believe: that everything is wonderful. Don’t we all need to be more like Elphaba, and eventually Glinda? … and see things for what they are, green skin, warts and all … and genuinely love each other despite, or maybe because of our weaknesses.

These themes are nicely explored, with humour and tenderness, in this episode of Wicked. Well worth not just a watch but subsequent reflection over the festive season.