Hairspray the tour

Mark Benton and Paul Rider in the touring production of Hairspray. Picture: Tristram Kenton

Hairspray, a touring production, reviewed at the Hippodrome, Birmingham (21 May-1 June).

If Hairspray has become one of the UK’s biggest hit musicals of the past three years, it’s because it deserves all the accolades showered upon it.

It has everything. The story and lyrics, devised by a prodigiously talented team of four (librettists Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, composer Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman) ratchet up wonders galore. Indeed Shaiman’s score is saturated with subtlety, pastiche and originality: all deft, varied, memorable.

There is a fine balance of high comedy and pantomime dame; mock-authority send-ups (including miraculous stand-in Amelia Adams-Pearce); its tough young heroine’s initially lone battle for racial equal rights (in showbiz); a superb evocation of the 1950s-60s – structurally Hairspray doesn’t put a foot wrong.

Three things win us from the start. As Tracy Turnblad, Freya Sutton captivates us from the first song, ‘Good Morning Baltimore’, which knocks everything for six. Designed by the fabulously inventive David Rockwell, the production looks fabulous, with each shift of scene producing a new visual miracle.

And Kenneth Posner’s lighting absolutely makes the show, his colour changes clever and relevant. The pinpoint, Tinkerbell-like follow-spot focuses each song like an extra musical instrument.

The band produces a full orchestra’s worth of colour – wind, guitars (the nagging bass guitar near the end is sensational), brass, keyboards and percussion. This show has rhythmic oomph and vocal pzazz like one of Broadway’s greatest.

Only trouble? It was all too loud. Unremitting high decibels mean you run the risk of anaesthetising an audience, and watering down the impact of key numbers.

Not that this Hippodrome audience cared. They relished it. The singing, fabulously well-rehearsed, was stupendous all round. Take Sandra Marvin’s epic Motormouth Maybelle, maternal sage of a show touchingly riddled with the conscientious, eager-to-learn young. Marvin’s climactic track ‘I Know Where I’ve Been’ proves not just a marvel of delivery, but a marvel of sensitive stage staging. Director Jack O’Brien never takes his finger off the pulse.

The other vocal star? Lauren Hood, as Penny Pingleton, provides a comic act all of her own, and while Marcus Collins, playing her love interest Seaweed, has the X Factor credits, the knockout voice is hers. It’s even refined despite loudspeakers splurging it grossly from the rafters.

So to the Two Ronnies duo of seasoned old hacks, Mark Benton’s Edna Turnblad and Paul Rider’s inventor dad Wilbur are truly sensational in a comic pas-de-deux. Like his acting, Benton’s singing is out of this world. The costumes for the Turnblad clan (by William Ivey Long) are also a highlight.

However, as Link Larkin, Luke Striffler (and those who play his chums) emerge pretty personality-less, but adequate ensemble members.

Three quarters of Jerry Mitchell’s choreography has both inventiveness and miraculous precision. A couple of numbers midway through Act I and one or two in Act II are more clunky, featuring endless hand-waving, and could be improved upon.

Lastly, a mention must be given to the trio dubbed as ‘Dynamite’ – and they are – who outshine almost everyone. Just one fabulous detail after another in this profoundly effective staging.

 Roderic Dunnett