Broadway hit
Hairspray, winner of the 2003 Tony Award for Best Musical, is London-bound at last. It will open at the West End’s Shaftesbury Theatre in late autumn, according to a report in
The Daily Mail.
Plans to bring the show to London had been advanced a couple of years ago. Casting was underway and a theatre booked (the Adelphi) when they were put on hold. But now, with the film version of the musical starring John Travolta due for U.S. release on 20 July this year, the show is finally crossing the Atlantic.
Hairspray is based on cult director John Waters’ 1988 movie of the same name, which starred the late Divine as Edna Turnblad and Ricki Lake as her teenage daughter Tracy, whose dream it is to dance on the Corny Collins TV Show. An affectionate satire of early 1960s social mores and a celebration of the dance craze culture of that era, the story charts "pleasantly plump" Tracy’s transformation from social outcast to overnight sensation. Duly ascended to the ranks of local celebrity in her home town of Baltimore, she must use her newfound power to vanquish the reigning teen queen, win the affections of heartthrob Link Larkin and racially integrate the Corny Collins Show's audience—all without denting her spectacular bouffant hairdo.
With music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, a book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan and direction by Jack O’Brien, the show
became an immediate Broadway smash when it premiered at the Neil Simon Theatre in the summer of 2002, where it continues to run.
The Shaftesbury is currently dark, following the early closure of the Boney M musical Daddy Cool and pending the imminent arrival of Fame in May. The latter show is currently booking to 1 September only, thus clearing the way for Hairspray, of which casting and further details have yet to be announced.