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.
The show's heroine, Tracy Turnblad, is an extremely well-rounded 16-year-old Baltimore girl who gets hooked on a TV dance show and determines to become Miss Hairspray 1962. Part of the show's good-hearted charm lies in seeing how Tracy, from her first experience of sexy black dancing in the school gym, decides to fight segregation on Baltimore's daytime TV.
At its best, the show gently mocks the naivety of white liberalism. "I wish every day were negro day," Tracy remarks of TV's monthly obeisance to Baltimore's racial divide. "In our house, it is," one of Tracy's black chums wanly retorts. Where the show really scores is in its ability to integrate serious issues into a lightweight plot and to express its affirmation of life through Jerry Mitchell's joyous choreography. If the show achieves the ecstasy one looks for in a musical, it comes largely through the dance routines.
In Jack O'Brien's deliciously fluid production, Leanne Jones is a remarkable Tracy, with a talent as high and wide as her scooped-up hair. And Michael Ball is very funny as her muscular moll of a mum. Admittedly, Mel Smith, as Tracy's joke-retailing dad, seems underemployed. But there is excellent support from Adrian Hansel as Tracy's fleet-footed black chum and from Elinor Collett as a dumb wallflower who attractively blossoms. In its celebration of plumpness, the show is a dietician's nightmare. But in its hymn to racial equality, it proves that its heart, like its hair, is in the right place.
· Box office: 020-7379 5399. A version of this review appeared in later editions of yesterday's paper.
