Hairspray is one of those musicals which, when summed up in one line, really shouldn’t work. Racism, bigotry and the ritual humiliation of the overweight are not usually topics to sing and dance about, but the creative team behind Hairspray deal with all of those subjects so well that the opening night audience in Eastbourne were on their feet and screaming for more at the curtain call.
The secret of success is that, although each subject is tackled head on, it is not dealt with in a patronising or preachy way but, in most cases, with comedy and sarcasm. Laughter is not the usual response to openly racist people but, as the piece is set in 1962, it simply reflects how laughable some peoples misplaced hatred really was back then.
Tracy Turnblad (Rosie O’Hare) is the “big girl with big dreams” who is desperate to become one of the dancers on the Corny Collins Show, a teenage TV music series.The trouble is that the show’s producer, Velma Von Tussle (Lucinda Lawrence) and her daughter Amber (played at this performance by Kirsty Ingram) don’t believe that anyone as big as Tracy should ever been seen on the small screen.
Corny, played by Jon Tsouras, soon realises that Tracy has something special and he arranges for her to join the dance crew on his show – and it is from that platform that Tracy sets about trying to change the racist and outdated rules and attitudes that govern the show.
The huge, and incredibly talented, cast means that there is very little in the way of “doubling up” for the actors and, as such, each has a character that they can work with, and develop, which they all do really well.
Dan Partridge, as the TV show’s heartthrob crooner, Link Larkin, gets to show that he has a big heart and a great voice, as well as his good looks and Shak Gabbidon-Williams as Seaweed, the lead dancer on the TV stations once-a-month “Negro Night” show, powers his way through his dance routines, while also showing that he has great comic timing as well.
Although the piece as a whole is a great feelgood celebration there are a few notes for the technical team. The sound department need to tighten up the timing when microphones are turned on, and off. The projected scenery works better when the projector is attached to something that doesn’t move quite so much (feeling a little seasick at times!) and, to whoever thought that it’s a good idea to change the furniture and props for the next scene, during the previous scene – it’s not.
A few of the minor characters also deserve a mention. Annalise Liard-Bailey as Tracy’s best friend, Penny Pingleton, really pulls off the ugly duckling/swan transformation beautifully, and has a fabulously annoying high pitch whiney accent and, one of the actors who does get multiple roles, Genevieve Nicole is a total revelation as Penny’s repressed and hopelessly bigoted Mother, a sadistic prison warden and the worst possible stereotype there could be of a girl’s gym teacher!
The final three major roles deserve heaps of praise for their simply superb portrayals of their characters. Brenda Edwards, as the presenter and DJ for “Negro Night”, Motormouth Maybelle, has a voice that, seemingly effortlessly, fills the auditorium and very nearly lifts the roof off it. Although it is up against a huge catalogue of great songs in the show, her version of I Know Where I’ve Been is the vocal highlight of the production.
Graham Macduff and the truly wonderful Matt Rixon, as Tracy’s parents Wilbur and Edna are the perfect couple. As characters who have personalities big enough to hide the insecurities that lay behind them, they laugh, joke, sing, dance – and occasionally ad-lib their way through the show, owning the stage, and bringing the house down, in the incredible, You’re Timeless to Me.
From the opening bars of Good Morning Baltimore to the incredibly infectious You Can’t Stop The Beat finale, Hairspray the Musical is brash, loud, colourful and has a heart and soul as big as Tracy’s dreams.
**** Four Stars