Matthew’s Blog: Let’s hear it for Hairspray!!!

Over the past few years, something’s gradually crept up on me, in my dual roles as audience member and weary sometime critic. It’s not the incessant shuffling of seemingly incontinent people needing to empty their bladder right in the middle of the first act, apparently unaware of the quiet chorus of tutting going on around them. Nor is it the astronomical ‘add-ons’ to the simple task of booking tickets. Nope, it’s the massive contrast in the standards of production of various touring musicals.

Let’s start with the current touring incarnation of Hairspray (happily selling out at the Opera House until 31st July). This is a triumph in every single way. Of course, it has an awful lot going for it, before it’s even lifted that spangly curtain. It’s a superb piece of theatre; as light as a feather, genuinely infectious, and full of uncountable moments of uplifting joy. In my book – well, in my blog, at any rate – it’s as good a piece of musical theatre as has ever been written. Any show that can craftily sneak in gospel walloper I Know Where I’ve Been in the second act is a classy dame indeed. It also, in Manchester at least, has Michael Ball reprising his Olivier award winning role as Edna Turnblad – and what a treat it is, too.

More importantly, though, charging a fairly high ticket price, this show feels like you get more than your money’s worth. Crucially, in no way does it feel in any way inferior/slimmed down/snipped, in comparison to its West End incarnation. A huge cast, large band, and full-scale set really do justice to this terrific show. The proof of this? I have never seen an audience respond at the curtain call in the way that they did on press night at the Opera House. Simply stunning.

If only all touring musicals took such trouble. Last week’s Spamalot featured a heroic performance by Jodie Prenger, a muddled one from Marcus Brigstocke, and a show that looked like a partly faded photocopy of its West End outing. A small cast manfully galloped round the stage, trying to plug the leaks, and address the elephant in the room – this tour looks like it’s been done on the cheap.

Granted, some shows can’t recreate their West End production values on the road. Miss Saigon had to be significantly rethought to show the regions its “astonishing” helicopter sequence, for example. And Cats had to be restaged in its entirety.

What this is about is a sneaking feeling that producers feel that “us folk in the regions” will make do with inferior product – but still charge high prices. The Rufus Norris production of Cabaret a couple of years back had been offensively sanitized for its touring run, for example. An actor friend of mine told me that on a recent tour (of a ‘big’ show), stage management were using felt tip markers to fill in parts of the set, and having to gaffer tape things together.

So, let’s hear it for Hairspray, the great show with a big heart, big hair, and a better attitude to touring production values.