Hairspray Archives - charleshutchpress

March 25, 2024March 25, 2024

Heads up to who will be appearing in Hairspray on tour at Grand Opera House

*Hairspray’s 2024-2025 touring cast: Heading to the Grand Opera House, York, this autumn*

BLOSSOMING North Yorkshire talent Alexandra Emerson-Kirby will make her professional stage debut in the lead role of Tracy Turnblad on the 2024/2025 UK and Ireland tour of Hairspray. The Grand Opera House, York, awaits her from October 28 to November 2.

Alexandra’s passion for musical theatre was nurtured at Scarborough’s YMCA Theatre. From there, she trained professionally at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, Woking, graduating recently in musical theatre and dance.

Alongside her will be fellow professional theatre debutante Michelle Ndegwa, playing Motormouth Maybelle after her selection from last November’s 3,000 open auditions hopefuls for the tour’s run from July 16 to next April.

Soul and gospel singer Nedgwa is best known for her vocals for the Gorillaz and has recorded with Billy Porter, Gregory Porter, Shapeshifters, Leeds band Yard Act, Becky Hill, Rita Ora, and Deseri too.

She has performed at Coachella, Glastonbury and BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend and her touring, festival and concert work includes backing vocals for Lizzo, Jorja Smith, Emeli Sande, Becky Hill, Nubya Garcia, Wizkid, TLC, Liam Gallagher, Ray BLK, Nina Nesbit, Shakka, Tom Odell and Trevor Nelson’s Soul Christmas at the Royal Albert Hall.

Brenda Edwards, who played Motormouth Maybelle in three productions under Paul Kerryson’s direction, now joins him to co-direct the latest tour. Choreography will be by Olivier Award winner Drew McOnie, artistic director of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London.

Based on John Waters’ cult 1988 film that starred Divine and Ricki Lake, Hairspray The Musical features music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan.

The 2002 Broadway premiere won eight Tony Awards; the 2007 West End premiere at the Shaftesbury Theatre picked up four Olivier Awards including Best New Musical.

Revelling in such songs as Welcome To The 60s, You Can’t Stop The Beat and Good Morning Baltimore, Hairspray traces the progress of ambitious heroine Tracy Turnblad, who has big hair, a big heart and big dreams to dance her way onto national American television and into the heart of teen idol Link Larkin.

When Tracy becomes a local star, she decides to use her newfound fame to fight for liberation, tolerance and interracial unity in Baltimore, but can she win equality – and Link’s heart – without denting her hairdo?

Kerryson and Edwards’s touring cast will include Neil Hurst, who played big lad Dave in The Full Monty on tour at the Grand Opera House last October, now cross-dressing as Tracy’s mum, Edna Turnblad.

Returning to the York stage too will be Joanne Clifton, this time as former beauty queen, TV show producer, devious taskmaster and racist snob Velma Von Tussle.

The 2016 Strictly Come Dancing champion appeared previously at the Grand Opera House as Princess Fiona in Shrek, Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show, welder Alex Owens in Flashdance and Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Further roles will go to Solomon Davy as Link Larkin; Declan Egan as show host Corny Collins, Katlo as Little Inez, Reece Richards as Seaweed and Allana Taylor as Amber Von Tussle.

Tickets are on sale at atgtickets.com/york.

June 1, 2023June 1, 2023

REVIEW: York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Teen Edition, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, until Saturday ****

*New face in town: Ryan Addyman in his York Stage debut as Jamie New in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Teen Edition. All pictures: Matthew Kitchen*

MADE in Yorkshire, “the hit musical for today” began life at Sheffield Crucible Theatre in 2017. Now comes its York premiere in the Teen Version with a cast of 13 to 19-year-olds led by Ryan Addyman, 17, from Knaresborough, in his York Stage debut.

Inspired by the Firecracker documentary Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, composer Dan Gillespie Sells (from Horsham’s finest pop practitioners The Feeling) and writer/lyricist Tom MacRae worked their magic from an original idea by director and co-writer Jonathan Butterell.

What emerged was the completion of a populist trilogy of Sheffield comedy dramas: the defiant spirit and sheer balls of The Full Monty, the classroom politics and fledgling frustrations of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, and now Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes to be wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen.

Since Jamie’s blossoming, two on-topic television shows have had a stellar impact: the couture and coiffeur catwalk and cat-talk contests of RuPaul’s Drag Race on the Beeb and the sass, too-cool-for-school dress sense and multi-cultural diversity of Sex Education, the Netflix binge-watch through lockdowns.

Sex Education shares Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’s bold humour, jagged wit and spot-on social awareness as a barometer of our changing times and attitudes towards gender, bigotry, bullying, homophobia, absentee fathers and the right to self-expression.

Meet the Year 11 pupils of Mayfield School, a typical comprehensive classroom of 16-year-olds full of hopes and aspirations, filtered through the realities of life in a northern town.

Among them is Addyman’s Jamie New, from a Sheffield council estate, but feeling out of place, so restless at sweet 16 to be “something and someone fabulous”. After Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher and Kes’s Billy Casper, here is another young Yorkshire dreamer in need of escape from the grey grime, this time in a classic teen rebel story, told from the teen perspective, but rooted in kitchen-sink northern drama rather than the white-toothed gleam of an American high-school musical.

It does nevertheless share one characteristic with the all-American Hairspray, for example, by giving the adult viewpoint in spades. Step forward Jamie’s world-weary, self-sacrificial, ever supportive mum Margaret (Maggie Wakeling, in terrific voice in her heartfelt ballads, If I Met Myself Again and especially He’s My Boy, the show’s most powerful vocal performance).

Always on the lookout for a bargain and ready with a comforting word or a putdown for authority is Margaret’s no-nonsense, cheery best friend Ray (an amusing Eve Clark), and further support comes from dress-shop boss Hugo/veteran drag act Loco Chanelle (resolute Sam Roberts).

Giving Jamie grief are his stay-away, mullet-haired Dad (Tyler Costello) and narrow-minded teacher Miss Hedge (Jaia Rowland).

*Maggie Wakeling’s Margaret, Jamie’s mum*

The Teen Edition necessitates giving these adult roles to young actors but all respond with performances that convey the age gap, not least in their singing performances.

As for the teens playing teens, not only Addyman’s Jamie scores high marks among the classroom performers, so too do Jack Hambleton, outstanding yet again on a York stage as the everybody-hating, self-loathing bully Dean Paxton, the big fish soon to lose his small pond, and Erin Childs’ quietly impressive, self-assured doctor-in-waiting Pritti Pasha, whose solo number It Means Beautiful is an Act II highlight.

Above all else, everyone will be talking about Addyman’s Jamie. A new face to York audiences, he is Jamie to the manner born: high of voice and heels, a shaker and a heartbreaker, a lippy kid in lip gloss, confident on the swan surface but naïve and vulnerable, wanting to strut before he can walk. Ugly In This Ugly World is his best number, almost matched by his kitchen duet with Wakeling’s Margaret, My Man, Your Boy.

Serious points are made in MacRae’s book, where the multiple confrontations carry both poignancy and punch, and you will love the Yorkshireness of it all: the blunt, knowing humour and the rough-rouge glamour of drag queens Sandra Bollock (George Hopwood), Tray Sophistacay (George Connell) and Laika Virgin (Harvey Jardine), Sheffield’s answer to the travelling trio in The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

Gillespie Sells’ tunes and MacRae’s lyrics are a delight too, led off by the immediately infectious And You Don’t Even Know It, through the irresistible title number to the show-closing defining statement of Out Of The Darkness (A Place Where We Belong).

*Sam Roberts’s dress-shop owner Hugo recalling Loco Chanelle’s days as a drag diva*

Musical director Jessica Viner works with a recorded score, but never sits back, always in view of the hugely energetic cast from the mezzanine level. Emily Taylor’s choreography is as vigorous and fun as ever, relished by leads, supports and ensemble alike.

Jo Street’s wardrobe and Phoebe Kilvington’s make-up and hair add to the spectacle, while the design combines glamour with grit: the John Cooper Studio is bedecked in shiny tinfoil and gold leaf with room for Margaret’s kitchen, the classroom and Hugo’s shop to glide on and off.

Nik Briggs’s direction goes to the top of the class, capturing the spirit of a show that “celebrates being yourself and finding a place where you belong”. Individuality and teamwork in tandem, the place where everyone here belongs is on stage, once more emphasising why the arts should never be undervalued in young lives, why there should always be a place for the Jamies of this world to express themselves.

How apt that this thrilling, uplifting production’s weekend climax should coincide with York Pride.

York Stage in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Teen Edition, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm, sold out; Saturday, 2.30pm (last few tickets) and 7.30pm, sold out. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.

June 15, 2022June 15, 2022

DreamWorks Theatricals’ Shrek The Musical to play Grand Opera House. When?

*Shrek The Musical: Arriving in York in 2023*

WEST End smash Shrek The Musical is on its jaunty way to the Grand Opera House, York, from November 27 to December 2…NEXT year.

After that long wait, join unlikely hero Shrek and his noble steed Donkey, beloved Princess Fiona and the evil Lord Farquaad as they embark on a big, bright, musical adventure that reimagines the Oscar-winning DreamWorks film and William Steig’s book for the stage.

After Broadway and London success, the producers of Hairspray and Priscilla Queen Of The Desert have joined forces with directors Sam Holmes and Nick Winston and designer Philip Witcomb for the touring production.

Full of unexpected friendships and surprising romance, this fun-filled musical comedy promises a cast of vibrant, magical fairytale characters and a “Shrektacular” score by composer Jeanine Tesori and lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire, topped off by Neil Diamond’s I’m A Believer.

DreamWorks’ animated film Shrek celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. Shrek The Musical was first performed on Broadway in 2008, produced by DreamWorks Theatricals and Neal Street Productions en route to receiving eight Tony nominations and the award for Best Costume and Set Design.

The original West End production was nominated for Best New Musical at the 2012 Olivier awards, where Nigel Harman received the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Lord Farquaad.

Shrek The Musical was staged previously at the Grand Opera House by York Stage Musicals in September 2019.

Tickets are on sale on 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com.

August 13, 2021August 27, 2021

Does too-cool-for-school Heathers The Musical make the grade at Leeds Grand Theatre? Here’s the school report

Hands up if you love Heathers The Musical. Picture: Pamela Raith

Heathers The Musical, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Saturday. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or at leedsheritagetheatres.com

LEEDS Grand Theatre is the first theatre in the world to host a touring production of Heathers The Musical.

No wonder the first-night audience was “super-excited” – everything has to be prefixed with “super” these days” – in a theatre so happy to be back to full capacity under Step 4 relaxation.

It was a predominantly young crowd, from late teens to twenties, and largely unmasked, for a show based on Michael Lehmann’s savagely satirical cult 1988 teen movie, an all-American high-school black comedy with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater appeal.

1988? Long before the stalls crowd were born, and yet the in-crowd knew the story, just as they knew the songs too – especially signature song Seventeen – from a musical premiered at Joe’s Pub, in New York City, in September 2010 but only brought over to London in 2018.

How come they cheer the first sight of the too-cool-for-school, ever-so-cruel trio of Heathers, the dead-mean clique with their croquet-mallet disdain at Westerberg High? Maybe they went down to London? Maybe they have the West End cast recording? More likely, they have tapped into the Heathers The Musical phenomenon on TikTok, apparently.

Here’s a quick refresher course for those new to class: Westerberg High pupil Veronica Sawyer (Rebecca Wickes) is just another nobody dreaming of better days at school, until she joins the Heathers clique: leader Heather Chandler (Maddison Faith) and her acolytes Heather Duke (Merryl Ansah) and Heather McNamara (Lizzy Parker).

Whereupon mysterious teen rebel Jason ‘JD’ Dean (Simon Gordon) – his outsider mystery denoted by always wearing black – arrives at Westerberg to teach her that “while it might kill to be a high-school nobody, it is murder being a somebody”. So begins a twisted teen relationship, sure to end more unhappily than a jaunty John Hughes movie.

Lehmann set his savvy, subversive, iconoclastic teen drama against Westerberg High’s tide of dangerously competitive, destructive, dysfunctional social rules, where you could drown in derision, potentially to the point of contemplating suicide, unless you showed the resolute spirit of a Veronica to break the monopoly of priapic sports jocks and hateful Heathers…with fatal consequences.

Now, in 2021, Heathers is darkly topical with teen suicides troubling headline writers, psychologists, parents and school heads alike, although here those suicides are being faked by a vengeful teen sociopath killer. The fact that the school principal and pupils believe they are suicides is arguably more disturbing: collateral damage amid the adolescent angst, turf wars, underdogs and bitches of the school room.

If you want everything to be heightened still more, turn a film into a musical, the opera of our times, and Heathers is duly blessed with top-grade lyrics and music by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, big on drama, cheese and heart-breaking balladry, for a macabre story of broken childhoods, eating disorders, bullying, lies, shootings and suicide. This is the stuff of opera indeed, but now with to-die-for snappy, cynical, yet sincere dialogue.

Consequently, Heathers is an adrenaline shot of a show with the darkness, sharpness and sass – and the knockout tunes – to give it the allure of a Wicked The Musical or Hairspray, although maybe not quite the devoted following of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show.

Veteran impresario Bill Kenwright. who knows a winner when he sees one, is producing this tour in tandem with Paul Taylor-Mills, employing American screen and stage director Andy Frickman to steer a thrilling, dead-funny yet poignant production, one where plenty more than the two leads shine.

Wickes’s Veronica is a steely girl-next-door; Gordon’s magnetic, brooding outsider, JD, sparks love, scorn and fear in equal measure. Her voice stirs and yearns; his voice enchants and ensnares with its beauty.

Faith’s sharp-dressed Heather Chandler looks the natural, click-of-a-finger leader, venomous when provoked, but beneath the surface swagger lies needy insecurity and human frailty.

Liam Doyle and Rory Phelan’s dumb-and-dumber Kurt and Ram transform from jock jerks to lovable eye candy and camp-comedy double act once stripped to their underpants; Georgina Hagen’s teacher Ms Fleming and Mhairi Angus’s neglected Martha “Dumptruck” Dunnstock vie for Heathers’ outstanding vocal cameo; Andy Brady and Kurt Kansley bring bags of personality and humour to assorted school principal/dad/coach roles.

David Shields’ designs, colourful, impressively mobile, smart and very Eighties’ USA, delight too. Of York interest, Gary Lloyd, who choreographed York Stage’s 2020 pantomime, Jack And The Beanstalk, brings his West End panache to dance routines that fill the Leeds Grand stage with energy, slick movement and bravura style, especially when the Heathers strut to the fore.

He uses the chorus to the full too, and among the ranks is a face familiar to York audiences, May Tether, who must have caught Lloyd’s eye when starring as Jill in York Stage’s panto. Let’s hope the understudy opportunities come her way on tour because May has an exuberant talent for musical theatre that deserves to be untethered.

Dear Diary, please note a second Yorkshire chance to see Heathers The Musical comes at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre from September 14 to 18. Box office: sheffieldtheatres.co.uk.

Marks: 8/10

NEWSFLASH: 27/8/2021

HERE comes May-hem!

CharlesHutchPress concluded the Heathers The Musical “school report” with the “hope that understudy opportunities come May Tether’s way on tour because she has an exuberant talent for musical theatre that deserves to be untethered”.

Sure enough, a tweet from the York Stage favourite of Goole roots confirms May has played the female lead, Westerburg High pupil Veronica Sawyer, at the Liverpool Empire.

At 9.43 this morning, May tweeted: “So I made my debut as Veronica Sawyer in the @HeathersMusical UK tour and stayed on for the following two-show day… what a thrill, I’m still in shock, you corn nuts are beautiful! In the wise words of @OfficialTracieB I let Liverpool AVVV ITTTTT.”