Good Morning Baltimore!
Or good afternoon, evening or night to wherever you are!
A little while back I saw Hairspray on stage. Much to people's shock in the office I have never actually seen the film. I have nothing against the film (I will very likely give it a watch now) but I always sort of felt like if I was going to see it, I wanted to see the stage show first. I don't know why. I've seen Billy Elliot live but I haven't seen that film either. But the amount of films I haven't seen that people I think I should is a whole other blog post. Titanic anyone?
Back to the subject at hand. Hairspray. First of all, AWESOME production from LSOS. I loved it. The sets were cool and the costumes were ace. Good work on the girls for wearing big knickers though with those skirts flying up!
Even though I try and write reviews of everything I go see, I still find them blooming tricky to do. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it so I struggle to know what to talk about. I mostly end up off topic and talking about the feeling from the show, but I'll try and do a quick summary for a change.
- Hairspray is set in 1960s America in Baltimore.
- There is some sort of telly show with a lot of school kids dancing and singing.
- They are your typical 'popular cool kids'.
- The main character Tracey is not. But boy does she love to dance and she dances well!
- Tracey dances so well she makes it onto the show, much to the annoyance of Amber who, because she is popular, feels a sense of entitlement to be the star, have the cool boyfriend and shun those who don't fit in.
The story covers many issues such as popularity, fitting in, being happy with your size, appearance and following your dreams. The main topic though is racial segregation. There are no black stars on the telly show, except on Negro Day.
Why does there need to be a day set aside Tracey wonders, when they could all just dance together?
I'm not going to get into the history and all that because frankly, I feel it is too heavy a subject for my small lighthearted blog and I wouldn't dare pretend I have enough knowledge on the subject to do it justice. I shall just say that it makes no sense to me whatsoever.
In terms of what you'll get from the show, expect romance, parental interventions, riots and stints in the big house. And songs. So many fantastic songs. The actors in our performance were amazing and really brought the characters to life. I especially fell in love with Tracey's parents who were simply fabulous.
I just want to add one quick thing that isn't actually about the show itself but about our seating. We were in the front row! I have never been in the front row before and it was really quite cool to be that close to the action. Having said this... I might not plump for front row tickets again (not that I bought these ones, thank you Boy) simply because we were so close to the orchestra that I found it hard to hear some of the singing. Live music is brilliant and I very much enjoyed a sneaky peak into the pit every now and then to see what the musicians were up to but I think in a musical the lyrics are pretty important and I did miss out on a fair few of these.
The only other thing I will say is that if you are a chap trying to maintain an air of bloke-ish-ness this maybe isn't the show for you. But if you don't give a monkeys then definitely go and see it! It is such a feel good time!
Love Charlotte x
