Review: Hairspray (and Paragraphs: Mary Poppins)

o be a total cliché and miss-quote a song title in the review of a show: Hairspray is big, bold, and beautiful.  And LOUD, in every sense of the word.   Loud music, loud voices, loud costumes, and above all, a loud set.  It is a fantastic melding of musical theatre and the performing arts, with ultra modern digital screen technology, leading to a hybrid which shows off the best of both the performance on stage and on digital screens.

You Can't Stop The Beat. Photo Ros O'Gorman.

Premiering on Broadway in 2002, this is the first Australian production, and it is an Australian production.  Taking the book and music from the original, Australian director/conceiver David Atkins has brought together an Australian creative team to deliver a product which makes the eight year gap more than worth it.   The team has delivered a production that is both so technically ambitious and achieving to have been given anything less in past years would have been a great loss.