THE award-winning musical Wicked is returning to Manchester.

The show which tells the incredible untold story of the Witches of Oz will be at the Palace Theatre for Christmas 2024.

This will be the third time that Wicked will have been to Manchester - in 2013 and 2018 around 225,000 tickets were sold for the show.

The cast will be led by Laura Pick who has played Elphaba in the West End in more than 350 performances. She appeared on BBC1’s Big Night of Musicals performing the song Defying Gravity from the show.

Further casting announcements will be made in due course.

The touring production is a mammoth undertaking with more than 100 people involved both on-stage and behind the scenes.

The show features all the spectacle and technical wizardry you would expect plus more than 350 stunning costumes.

Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical, based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, imagines a beguiling backstory and future possibilities to the lives of L. Frank Baum’s beloved characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reveals the decisions and events that shape the destinies of two unlikely university friends on their journey to becoming Glinda The Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Wicked has now been seen by almost 65 million people worldwide, and this year marks the 20th Anniversary of its Broadway premiere. Productions continue on Broadway, in the West End, and on tour across North America. This year, Wicked also returns to Sydney, Australia and Tokyo, Japan.

Wicked has won over 100 major international awards including three Tony Awards; two Olivier Audience Awards ; 11 WhatsOnStage Awards (including three for ‘Best West End Show’) and a Grammy.

Wicked will run at the Palace Theatre, Manchester from Tuesday, December 3, 2024 to Sunday, January 12, 2025. Tickets go on sale on Friday, May 19. For details visit www.atgtickets.com