Hairspray

I confess. I wanted to hate 'Hairspray'. I've nothing against its loveably chubby heroine Tracy Turnblad (victim of her school's anti-fat bimbos), who teams up with the black kids from Special Ed to overthrow '60s racial prejudice and fulfil her dreams by (get this) busting their non-white dance moves on primetime TV. It was actually the thought of Michael Ball in drag which made me want to change profession.

But thanks to Jack O'Brien's insanely uplifting production, I'm eating my words. True, O'Brien can do nothing to plump up the size-zero plot, a spindly coathanger for makeovers, momma/daughter bonding, starry-eyed snogs and XXL emotional razzmatazz. True, the lyrics sometimes suck - Maybelle (the show's black big momma) has to get her mouth around a rack of chunkily affirmative couplets whose only relationship to rap is putting a 'c' in front of it. And true, the black/fat equivalences (Tracy's chums' ancestors were slaves, she's enslaved by the cheeseburger) might be troubling if thought were the object here.

Luckily, it isn't. This may be brainless pleasure, but its heart (a lovely duckling who wins through without becoming a nasty swan) is triumphantly in the right place. Its butt is in the right place too, thanks to Jerry Mitchell's glorious seat-shimmying choreography. Leanne Jones (Tracy) shakes it with innocence and charm; her blonde oppressors (ma-and-daughter team Tracie Bennett and Rachael Wooding) make great pre- and post-menopause versions of psycho-Barbie. Ball's fat-suit lends him delightful comic gravitas as Tracy's ma; his duets with hubbie Mel Smith make nicely affectionate vaudeville. And the encounter between black and white music gives the score booty-shaking zing. Beyond that, it is, essentially, a two-and-a-half hour fantasy that Oprah's target audience could stick their supersized hopes up the super-toned ass of WASP America. But what's not to like about that?
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