theatre review: never have a bad hair day again

October 16th, 2009

Nichola Sharpe, our Head of PR takes her twin sister to see Hairspray and here’s her great review.

After the week I’ve had, the thought of going to an uplifting musical about big hair, racial divide in America in the 60s was the last thing I wanted to do. Also, I’ve only just recently seen the film with the ‘hunky’ young Zac Efron and who could forget John Travolta in those dodgy dresses, so I wondered how on earth can the musical version top that?

How wrong could I be?!

Hairspray is showing at the Shaftesbury Theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue, but don’t be fooled in thinking it is easy to find as it’s not as central to the West End as the address suggests. It’s best to either walk from Holburn or Covent Garden tube stations, and I do highly recommend you allow enough time to squeeze in a drink or two as this cute little gastro pub, the White Hart on Drury Lane.

We had a quick glass of wine or two, then stumbled slightly round the corner to the theatre.

From the minute my sister and I sat down in our seats in the stalls, four rows from the front staring at a huge bright pink ‘wig’ curtain.

My excitement started to build and weirdly I was transported back to my own teenage years in Essex, where unfortunately I had my own unique hairstyle too…a bad dodgy perm, rather than their aspiring high volume hair in a nicely styled do.

From the opening song ‘Welcome to the 60s’, belted out by lead role, Tracy Turnblad, played by a feisty and perfectly cast, Chloe Hart, we were tapping our feet, so much so that the rest of our at first, slightly stiff and boring row, joined in too. My sister and I were so close to the stage we could even see each of the individual hairs on the wigs which wiggled around during the elaborate dance routines. And a quick piece of trivia for you, did you know there are a total of 175 wigs used during the show.

Now I have to admit, when I first saw Brian Conley on stage as Edna Turnblad in his full female get up, I wasn’t convinced, even though I’ve found out, it takes him two hours to get ready.

However, as the show continued, for me, Edna and his/her co-star ‘husband’, Wilber Turnblad, played by Nigel Planer (yes that is ‘Neil’ from the Young Ones) stole the show. Their romantic scene duet ‘You’re timeless to me’ had us all in stitches especially when they both kept ad libbing and suggesting extra kisses from each other – err, I realise now this sounds odd, but you did have to be there!

All in all an uplifting night and I don’t want to spoil the end for you, but it’s nice to see that love conquers all and I never need to worry about my dodgy blonde teenage perm ever again :-)