This week’s offering from the online series ‘The Shows Must Go On’ YouTube channel, was the NBC 2016 production of ‘Hairspray Live!’ With so little joy being had from social interactions these weekly Musicals have kept us theatre-lovers going almost in a wartime like spirit, helping to escape the horrors of this awful tragedy happening right on our doorsteps, with good old-fashioned escapism. . .and I love that! Having nothing to look forward to the weekend for, this series has managed to punctate a Friday night with streamed Musical theatre productions and given us something fun each week!
For those who have been living under a rock and have never heard of Hairspray, it is a wry parody, seen through the eyes of teenager Tracy Turnblad, growing up in 1960's Baltimore, USA. Tracy’s innocence and determination enable her to overcome media image prejudices to become the first ’big girl’ to appear on the national TV ‘Corny Collins’s Show’, whilst helping her friends to beat racial segregation. The colourful production is full of fast-paced musical theatre numbers from beginning to end with ‘Good Morning Baltimore’, ‘Without Love’ and ‘You Can’t Stop The Beat’ being my all-time favourites.
NBC has pulled out all the stops in the casting of this ‘Live’ production. With huge stage and screen names from Broadway and Disney, such as Arianna Grande in the role of Tracy’s best friend Penny and Jennifer Hudson playing the wonderful Motormouth Maybelle. They do not disappoint with their fantastic vocals and strength of characterisation. There were even cameo appearances from Ricki Lake (from the original film) and Marissa Jaret Winokur (from the original Broadway show), Mr Pinky, Sean Hayes (Will and Grace) and Health Ed Teacher played by Hollywood actress Rosie O’Donnell. The show-stealing role is usually Tracy’s mother Edna Turnblad, played my a male actor. In this production, she was played by Harvey Fierstein, a Tony Award-winning performer (in the Tony Award-winning role). Unfortunately, I found this performance to be one of the most disappointing. His raspy vocals and breathless affectations made him seem almost incapable of pulling off the set pieces of the role. I know that his voice is his unique selling point along with the incongruously comic portrayal of this woman, but that is the sum total of his appeal, with characterisation, comic-timing and physicality all falling short of the mark throughout the show.
Contrary to this, my favourite performances of the show were from Kristin Chenoweth and Dove Cameron as the gruesome twosome of Velma and Amber Von Tussle. The mother and daughter at the corrupt centre of the Corny Collins show whose white privilege, vanity and fat-shaming poison the off-screen atmosphere of this otherwise wholesome TV show. Both performers had brilliant stage presence and really drove the comic timing of every scene and number they featured in.
I was really excited to watch this NBC Live production from 2016 because it is my humble opinion that Hairspray is one of the greatest feel-good musicals of our time, due to the brilliantly catchy numbers and the ironic take on the hard-hitting messages of its storyline. However, one would be forgiven for assuming that you were going to watch a stage production of the world-famous ‘Hairspray the Musical’ from its title, but I was left feeling that this was somewhat of a halfway house; neither stage show nor film-for-screen. The vocals were brilliant but didn’t feel ‘live’ at all, leading one to suspect auto-tuning or (whisper it) pre-recorded vocals were afoot and the show felt more like an American studio recorded sitcom (which worked in the studio-based scenes but felt quite flat in the interior house / shop scenes). NBC’s production quality was overloaded with a certain slickness that threatened to sterilise a show which, at its heart, is satirising the artifice of television. This was a shame, because it took away from the excellent performers (particularly the ensemble cast), the brilliant choreography and the music of the show. Hairspray Live! just didn’t beat the stage nor the film versions but the quality of the storytelling, music and choreography is so good that you cannot come away from it feeling disappointed. The feel-good nature of this musical wins out and you just can’t help but smile.
Reviewer - Johanna Hassouna-Smith
on - 30/5/20
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