Hairspray - the tour (2011)

This is such a feelgood musical that it really should be available on the NHS! What a fabulous evening ending in a rightly deserved full house standing ovation ... even if the show was cut down to just the duet between Edna and Wilbur Turnblad - played as a front-of tabs piece by Michael Ball and Micky Dolenz - it would still be worth the ticket money and more.

You might surmise, from the above, that I enjoyed the show. You'd be right .... this light, frothy musical with the deeper social messages, really does hit a mass of high notes driven at breakneck speed by a company who were working as hard as any I have seen in a long time - no slackers here, they really do sell every song and dance - it was tiring just watching ... maintaining an ample figure with all that exercise is quite a feat, I know how hard it is to keep my girth ;-)

Though there really are no weak members of the team (hoorah, follow spot operators on the ball ... literally!), and this is trully a team show,  there are some great performances from Sandra Marvin (Motormouth Maybelle - such a lovely voice), Laurie Scarth (Tracy herself) and Wayne Robinson (Seaweed) ... however, it was Michael Ball and Micky Dolenz who got the biggest applause - they were fab and seemed to be genuinely having a hoot ... as were we all!

What a great evening