Hairspray - Review

London Coliseum, London

*****

Music by Marc Shaiman

Lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman

Book by Mark O'Donnell & Thomas Meehan

Directed by Jack O'Brien

Lizzie Bea, Michael Ball and Les Dennis

A cast comprising both stalwarts and debutantes of the West End make Jack O’Brien’s revival of his original take on Hairspray a must-see for anyone who has craved musical theatre during lockdown’s cultural drought.

Hairspray is of course all about the power of well-integrated diversity, where life’s typical outsiders become the heroes and the bigots are the baddies. In a socially distanced London Coliseum, where the covid-compliant capacity has been shrunk from 3,000 to 1,000 it was Michael Ball who summed up the audience’s roars of rapture, by saying at the curtain-call that they had cheered like 10,000, such was the throng’s pent-up passion.

Making her West End debut – albeit with a string of regional work to her credit – Lizzie Bea  leads with a stunning Tracy Turnblad. From the moment she bursts from her vertically transposed bed, straight into Good Morning Baltimore, Bea sets the evening’s pulsating tone. Confident and charismatic, Bea wins her audience and without ever resorting to kitsch or mawkishness, she masterfully enacts Tracy’s story, winning love and empathy as she hurtles towards the show’s sublimely happy ending.

Opposite Tracy is of course her domineering mother Edna and yet again for a London Hairspray, it is Michael Ball who returns to the padded suit to reprise what must surely (after Les Miserables’ Marius) be his second signature role. The years have seen Ball age disgracefully into his Edna with him proving all the more delectably monstrous for it too. The show’s eye-wateringly brilliant comedy highlight remains Ball and Les Dennis (as hapless hubby Wilbur) duetting (You’re) Timeless To Me. The song demands perfection in its timing and nuance for its shtick to work – with the seasoned professionalism of Ball and Dennis providing a masterclass in hilarity.

The always excellent Marisha Wallace delivers a magnificent Motormouth, with a performance that both rouses and enraptures the Coliseum’s crowd. Her take on the show’s eleven o’clock number I Know Where I’ve Been sending the audience into a spontaneous standing ovation, such was her power of performance and emotion.

Rita Simons brings her 2-dimensisional character of arch-baddie Velma Von Tussle into wonderfully comic relief, while squaring the circle of the show’s key love arc, Jonny Amies (another West End newbie) offers an assuredly chiselled performance as TV show host Link Larkin.

O’Brien and his choreographer Jerry Mitchell, know Hairspray intimately and yet they still infuse a freshness and vitality into the production that makes it as relevant a comment for today as for its original target of 1960s civil rights torn Baltimore.

Outstanding musical theatre!

Runs until 29th September

Photo credit: Tristan Kenton