Review – Hairspray, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 31st January 2022

HairspraySome shows are like comfort food. When times are tough you have a longing for their reassurance, their positivity, their reminder of the Good Old Days, and their sheer effervescent sense of fun. Hairspray is one such show and is back on the road again with a UK tour and is packing them out at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton, until Saturday 5th February.

Edna, Wilbur and TracyLike all the best musicals, this one is deceptively ferocious at heart. Behind its cutesy bubble gum facade is a portrayal of racial prejudice and segregation. Terms like “coloured music” and “negro day” hit you hard and land uncomfortably in the context of an upbeat goofy show, But coming together in the name of music and fun can wipe away injustice, and once the young people start dancing together, it’s unstoppable. You can’t stop the beat, in fact.

Wilbur and TracyYou probably know the set-up already: Tracy Turnblad longs to be a TV star but she has neither the figure nor the middle class background to break into the big time. When she tries to audition for Corny Collins’ music and dance show, she comes up against the ruthless producer Velma whose sole ambition is to get her pretty but obnoxious daughter Amber into the limelight, primarily by fixing her to win the “Miss Teenage Hairspray” title. But Tracy’s natural vivacity and talent shine through and when Corny sees her perform he insists on her being in the show.

Full castIn 1962 Baltimore there’s racial segregation everywhere, and Velma has an “all-white” policy for the show. Tracy tries to use her new influence to break down this barrier by organising a protest march for all the dancers on the show to demand full racial integration. The march gets out of hand, the police are called, they’re all arrested, but “the new Elvis”, Link, sneaks into the prison and helps Tracy escape so that she can get back to the studio just in time to win the coveted title. In what turns out to be a very moral story, good wins through and Velma and Amber are left licking their wounds.

Tracy in full swingPaul Kerryson’s production first saw light of day at the Leicester Curve a few years back and has the big benefit of Drew McOnie’s choreography, which drives forward the story of the songs just as much as the lyrics do, rather than being a mere attractive accompaniment to them. The dance routines are true to the 1960s era and invested with a terrific physicality and liveliness that’s a joy to watch. You’ve got to be as fit as a fiddle to do justice to this choreography, but the whole cast is up to the task and nail it. Danny Belton’s band are full of zest as they bring out the best of Ben Atkinson’s musical arrangements of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s score, and there are plenty of musical highlights that thrill the audience, from the opening ebullience of Good Morning Baltimore, the lyrical insight of Run and Tell That, the heart-warming charm of You’re Timeless to Me to the ultimate finale You Can’t Stop the Beat that sends everyone out into the cold night with joy in their souls, and still has them singing it the next day.

Wilbur and MotormouthThe original film starred Divine as Edna and since then it’s always been a given that she should be played by a bloke in a dress. Not entirely sure why; it just is. For this tour, Edna is played by Alex Bourne, who cuts a very statuesque figure, positively looming over everything and everyone else on stage; I’m surprised he doesn’t get a nosebleed up there. He’s made the (I think) wise decision not to feminise his voice at all, and he’s a great exponent of musical theatre with a terrific stage presence. His/her Wilbur is played by Norman Pace, a big favourite with the audience; emphasising the wide-eyed innocence and buffoonery of the character. In their own little way, Edna and Wilbur are such a force for good; decent, honest, kind, generous people, so we love spending time with them and their endearing little foibles, brought out perfectly in their rendition of You’re Timeless to Me, which had exactly the right amount of fooling around and fourth-wall breaking.

Tracy and EdnaRebecca Thornhill is absolutely stunning as the vicious Velma, an elegant vision of arrogance and cruelty, often being carried aloft by a group of men as a representation of her effortless superiority. She brings out both the humour and the horror of the character perfectly. And Brenda Edwards, with a voice that could move mountains, returns to reprise her role as Motormouth Maybelle, winning our hearts with a sensational performance of I Know Where I’ve Been that brings the house down.

TracyHairspray is a show that always gets the best out of its young performers –  it’s a perfect place to spot stars of the future. For our performance, understudy Joshua Pearson played Link Larkin, and he was foot- and pitch-perfect all the way through, absolutely getting the character’s blend of stage-arrogance but real life kindness; he did a brilliant job. You can’t take your eyes off Charlotte St Croix whenever she’s onstage as Little Inez, a diminutive powerhouse of attitude and voice. Rebecca Jayne-Davies shows great versatility as the much put-upon Penny Pingleton who blossoms into an assured young woman, and there’s great work from Reece Richards as Seaweed, Jessica Croll as Amber and all the guys and girls of the Ensemble.

Velma and her crewBut there’s no doubt that the night belongs to Katie Brace as Tracy, in her professional debut. Full of zing and charm, bursting with personality, terrific singing and dancing and wholly believable in a role where it would be so easy to go way over the top into pantomime. She’s a complete ray of sunshine and definitely a star of the future.

EdnaIt’s impossible not to be wowed by this show and carried away with its upbeat vibe. It’s not like Mrs Chrisparkle to be the first on her feet with an ovation but there was no holding her back last night. A night of genuine warmth, fun and masses of feelgood factor. Hairspray is alive and well and living in Northampton, and it would be a crime to miss it!

 

Production photos by Mark Senior

Five Alive Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Hairspray, Derngate, Northampton, 28th September 2015

HairsprayThe prospect of the return of Hairspray the Musical filled Mrs Chrisparkle and me with delight. We loved the original show in 2008 with Michael Ball and Leanne Jones, and remember leaving the theatre energised and upbeat. The original film, too, is a heap of fun, with the amazing Divine as Edna – casting that thereby required all future Ednas to be played by a bloke. One quick check of the creative team for this revival tells you you’re in the safest of hands, with Leicester’s Paul Kerryson directing, top-of-his-game Drew McOnie choreographing, and a cast of huge talent. So it was no surprise that the Derngate was packed to the rafters with an almost full house on Monday night for its first performance in Northampton.

Tony MaudsleyI’m sure you know the story, but in a nutshell: “pleasingly plump” Tracy Turnblad longs to be a TV star but she has neither the figure nor the middle class background to break into the big time. When she tries to audition for Corny Collins’ music and dance show she comes up against the ruthless producer Velma whose sole ambition is to get her pretty but obnoxious daughter Amber into the limelight, primarily by fixing her to win the “Miss Teenage Hairspray” title. But Tracy’s natural vivacity and talent shine through and when Corny sees her perform he insists on her being in the show. We’re talking 1962 Baltimore, and there’s racial segregation everywhere you look. Prim parents, like that of Tracy’s best mate Penny, Peter Duncanrefer to “race music”, and the prejudiced Velma has an “all-white” policy for the show. One day a month is “Negro day”, when the black performers are allowed to take to the stage – no other time. Tracy tries to use her new influence to break down this barrier by organising a protest march for all the dancers on the show to demand full integration between the races. When the march gets out of hand, the police are called, they’re all arrested, but “the new Elvis”, Link, sneaks into the prison and helps Tracy escape so that she can get back to the studio just in time to win “Miss Teenage Hairspray”. In the end, segregation becomes integration in what turns out to be a very moral story where good wins through and evil is defeated.

Freya SuttonThere’s so much to enjoy this production, and a good night was had by all despite some technical problems, no doubt related to the fact that this was its first night on tour. Given that it’s Paul Kerryson in charge, perhaps surprisingly the majority of problems are down to the staging. We were in the middle of row F of the stalls – and I spoke to a friend who was in the side stalls in Row K – and we both had the same problem: you can see far too much of what’s going on in the wings. Now, you might expect that if you’re right on the edges of the seating plan; and sometimes a little hint of what’s going on is quite exciting from a stagecraft point of view. But this level of movement was distracting. The problem is that the side drapes don’t hang low enough to mask what’s going on – maybe because of the two platforms that get wheeled on and off at the sides, representing the Turnblads’ house and Motormouth Maybelle’s record shop. The band are also positioned at the back of the set, which means from time to time they are in full view, normally something that would lend an added, exciting dynamic; but during the course of the evening I looked up at them occasionally and when some band members were not playing their instruments, they simply looked bored! So that really didn’t work. I also felt that the scenery representing the prison was distracting, as it flew in and out of position just a bit too often; and I also didn’t realise that the place where Seaweed and his pals hung out was meant to be a record shop; I thought it was just a street.

Claire SweeneyHopefully the technical issues will get quickly ironed out – there were, for example, too many moments when actors were performing unlit, and where the pauses between scenes were too long. Fortunately, the cast coped with the problems admirably; particular kudos to Jon Tsouras for deftly switching from hand-held mic to no mic and back again without a flicker of an eyebrow. I must say though this is the first time I’ve ever seen a dancer (no names, no pack drill) come on stage in a pair of trousers at least three sizes too small for him, unzipped and unbuttoned up at the top, do a few moves and then run off, not to reappear for the rest of the scene. What on earth happened there?! Had he put on someone else’s trousers? Despite that, I thought Takis’ costume design for the show was first rate, providing a stage billowing with primary colours and creating some enormously snazzy shirts and jackets of which I was thoroughly jealous.

Brenda Edwards and castTalking of dancing, and dancers, this is one area in which this production absolutely excels. Drew McOnie’s choreography is sparky and funny, and reaches out to the audience with a huge pair of open arms and welcomes us in. He creates dances that manage to tell a story, even within the context of a big show number, in a way that other choreographers would just create something that looks pretty. It was his choreography for the song “Run and Tell That” that was so instantly captivating and that matched perfectly the creativity of his dancers, that made you feel you were watching something really special. The whole dance ensemble are fantastic, but amongst them there is one Layton Williams, whom we saw in Lord of the Flies, who is just an amazing dancer, and for whom I predict Really Great Things.

Jon TsourasOf course the role of Edna is really larger-than-life, and Tony Maudsley has some very big shoes to fill when you consider other performers who have taken the role before him. When he first appeared on stage, I was completely thrown as he was the spitting image of my Nan in the 1970s. Even their gravelly voices were similar. He plays Edna more demurely than I would have expected; very respectful of her maternal role, and not remotely playing up the drag aspect. I was unsure of this interpretation at first, but it worked particularly well with the show-stopping “You’re Timeless to Me”, as his surprisingly refined and elegant Edna provides a great contrast with Peter Duncan’s cheeky-chappie portrayal of Wilbur. With Mr Duncan cutting a diminutive figure in comparison to Mr Maudsley’s statuesque Edna, it was a bit like Tigger romancing Winnie-the-Pooh’s granny. I didn’t expect to have to say this, but I still think he could brighten up (maybe even camp up) his more glamorous appearances; in particular his final entrance didn’t quite have a sufficiently outrageous wow factor for me. Mr Duncan is, however, pitch-perfect throughout, conveying just the right mix of parental kindliness and general facetiousness that you would expect a joke shop proprietor-father to have.

Dex LeeFreya Sutton is a great Tracy; full of teenager enthusiasm, hopelessly infatuated with pop stars and delightfully open-minded and unprejudiced. She sings with great strength and charm and can turn in some wicked dance moves too. There’s a cracking performance from Brenda Edwards as Motormouth Maybelle, putting all her heart and soul (and then some more) into that big rousing number; and a funny yet very strong musical performance from Monique Young as Tracy’s dorky friend Penny, who graduates from Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan in front of our eyes. Jon Tsouras cuts a charismatic dash as Corny Collins, nicely massaging away the fixed grin from his face whenever the camera is turned off, and there’s excellent support from both Adam Price and Tracey Penn as the two “authority figures”. Lauren Stroud is a splendidly smart-arsey Amber, the perfect representation of what you become when you’re spoilt rotten as a child. I thought Ashley Gilmour rather underplayed the role of Link Larkin; I’m not sure I could see him as the next Elvis, to be honest, and you couldn’t really tell when he was being a louse and when a hero. There was an unintentionally hilarious moment when he came through the audience to rescue Tracy from prison. Waving his torch in all directions he called out “where are you?” to which an audience member replied “here!” and we all had to stifle our giggles.

Monique YoungI always love it when I see A Star Is Born performance – and this show has one in the form of Dex Lee as Seaweed. We’ve already seen him once in the incredible Scottsboro Boys but in Hairspray he absolutely shines and confirms he is a brilliant song and dance man. His voice, his dancing and his enormously likeable stage presence make for a winning combination; and he and Monique Young made a really charming young couple together. There were also brilliant contributions from the three Dynamite girls, Vanessa Fisher, Aiesha Pease and Bobbie Little. They looked gorgeous, sang like a dream and danced their little socks off.

Layton WilliamsOf course the show has lots of amazingly entertaining moments, none more exhilarating than its brilliant finale – You Can’t Stop the Beat – which, as Mrs C pointed out, is worth the ticket fee alone, and which guarantees you leave the theatre in the bounciest of moods. It also has some hard-hitting and poignant moments where it exposes the racial segregation system of the time, and its occasional uncomfortable scenes stand out as moments of telling dramatic tension. Once it’s taken a couple of days to bed in this is going to be a really slick show – fingers crossed for no more technical failures! It’s on a pretty massive UK tour right round to next May, so if you’re local to Malvern, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Wimbledon, Bradford, Southampton, Ipswich, Brighton, Birmingham, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Inverness, Bristol, Woking, Cardiff, Norwich, Milton Keynes, Canterbury or Stoke, I’m sure you’ll have a great time!