Hairspray Tickets:14 recommendations
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Big, bold musical starring Michael Ball, based on the cult 1988 movie
About Hairspray
Based on the cult 1988 John Waters film starring Ricki Lake, Divine, Debbie Harry and Sonny Bono, Hairspray has broken West End records this year, being nominated for eleven Olivier awards. This success has been a long time coming for the show, as it has been playing to packed houses at the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway since 2002, with a US tour starting only a year later.
Hairspray’s success in London has been preceded by rapturous acclaim in New York, being awarded no less than eight Tonys and nine Drama Desk awards, and of course having the honour of being adapted for the screen in the wildly successful 2007 movie starring Hollywood legends John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken. Hairspray’s success has not been any less impressive since it opened at the Shafetsbury Theatre in October 2007 starring Michael Ball as Edna Turnblad.
The hard hitting story of racial segregation and integration in 1960’s Baltimore, told with sensitivity, passion, comedy, fantastic music and spectacular imagery has earned the West End production three of the record breaking eleven Olivier Awards it had been nominated for. Hairspray has well and truly shattered the Shaftesbury Theatre’s long standing reputation as a graveyard for failed musicals, becoming its most successful show to date.
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Reviews
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.
