Hairspray at The Bristol Hippodrome Review

Our Verdict: A marvellous show worthy of the proper Slow To Hard Fast Clap at the end

Our Rating: 8/10

It’s impossible to leave the Hippodrome without a smile on your face, thanks to an energetic cast and a compelling tension behind the comedy that ticks most diversity boxes.

The big beams of Freya Sutton returning as Tracy Turnblad in this new UK tour, warms the cockles of your heart as she belts her way through a cracking score.

Tracy and her best friend Penny Pingleton (Monique Young) rush home after detention every day to watch the Corney Collins Show on TV. When a space for a new dancer comes up, Tracy is determined to fill it and be crowned Miss Hairspray 1962. Of course it’s not a simple journey and one in which she encounters almost every kind of prejudice until her favourite TV show is Integrated.

Brenda Edwards supports her in this and is a sincere Motormouth Maybelle. With her incredible vocals, she added real heart to the frustrations and resignation to the racism of 60’s Baltimore.

Claire Sweeney is the marvellously underhanded antagonist Velma Von Tussle which she plays with aplomb. By the end of the show she’s staggering around the stalls shouting out her woes and swigging from a hip flask.

Tony Maudsley as Edna and Peter Duncan as Wilbur Turnblad, almost steal the show with their Morecambe and Wise styled rendition of You’re Timeless To Me.

But it’s the entire cast in the final scene singing You Can’t Stop The Beat which scored Standing Ovation O’Clock.

In most shows they are the unsung heroes in the background, but in Hairspray, the Swing is excellent and the show would be so much less without them.

For parents taking school aged children to see the show, it may be worth a word of caution to offspring at the end. In the historical context of the show words, phrases and descriptions are occasionally used from the period that are very offensive these days. They are not ones to be repeated ignorantly in playgrounds. But this is also an age appropriate show allowing younger children to see how much prejudice black people had to face in a very recent past and is still pertinent today.

Hairspray is at The Bristol Hippodrome until Saturday 12 March 2016

www.atgtickets.com/venues/bristol-hippodrome

For more information about the show and UK tour, visit: http://www.hairsprayuktour.com/