Hairspray

by Adam Shankman (2007).

There exists an older version made by John Waters in 1988. Aurore has seen it.

Some of the actors we could see in Waters film was Divine, Deborah Harry (Blondie) and the talk show host Ricki Lake.

The main actors in this film are John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken and Queen Latifa.

Last year this musical was staged in Stockholm (Chinateatern) playing until the 28th of March this year, visited by more than 120 000 persons!

In one of the roles in Stockholm one could see Joanna Perera Eriksson, a show artist I've briefly worked with during a making of commercial in Sweden.

It is and has been a very popular musical that ran many years on Broadway and in the West End.

The story is located in Baltimore in the early 1960's and it all circles around a very popular TV-show - the Corny Collins Show.
One of the stars of the show leaves and Corny (what a name) holds auditions with several young women eager to become the next shining star. Like the 'docu-soaps' today.

One of the aspirants is Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a somewhat overweight teenager, dreaming of becoming a star.
She has a very fine voice but the standard of 'looks' were then as rigid as today and therefore her opponents - and expecially one, namely Amber von Tussle (Brittany Snow) - mock her, in order to force her giving up.

Ambers mother Velma (Michelle Pfeiffer) is also a 'pain in the ass' (excuse me fot the expression).

Another injustice is that the black adolescents are not allowed to perform more than once a month in this show.
This is however not the 1950's and change is coming.

With the help of her mother Edna (John Travolta), father Wilbur (Christopher Walken) and the black youngsters and one of their mothers, the strong and independent Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifa) they of course succeed in turning things around.

I very much liked this film and not least for the music and the humour.
Seeing John Travolta in the role as Edna was really amusing and today I think that most people know that even Christopher Walken once was a dancer, whereby the casting is quite interesting in this part.

Queen Latifa is of course extremely charming in her role and most sing- and dance numbers are very good and well choreographed.

In the role as Mr Pinky we see Jerry Stiller (the father of Ben Stiller), who in the older version from 1988 did the role of Wilbur Turnblad.