Hairspray Tickets:14 recommendations
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The Independent
Broadway musical leaves other shows looking thin on top
I don't know about yours, but my beehive had capsized with excitement even before the curtain had even gone up at the West End opening night of this Broadway musical version of Hairspray. Despite, I might add, furious back-combing and strenuous action with an aerosol in the gents to keep it erect. Normally, I go for the kind of windswept look that would count as a "hairdo violation" at the heroine's Baltimore High School. But I thought a bit of effort barnet-wise was appropriate for a musical that comes boasting eight Tony Awards. Was the show worth it? Yes, yes and again yes.
The Guardian
The great thing about John Waters' 1988 cult movie was that you felt every expense had been spared. But even if Hairspray, in the process of being turned into a Broadway musical, has lost some of its glorious tackiness, it retains its generous spirit: this is still a show that not only hymns physical difference but also the basic right to racial integration.
The Times
What is surprising is that the show gently spoofs itself and what’s refreshing is the sophistication of its jokes. As friendly and unfriendly whites pack into Fiori’s music shop, someone remarks that “if we get any more in here, it’ll be a suburb”. You wouldn't get lines like that in Grease, Fame or any other ode to American high-school life. No wonder I left the Shaftesbury thinking it was a pretty welcoming place after all.
