Welcome to the Sixties

The last call on the whistle-stop tour of the West End was Hairspray on Saturday night at the Shaftesbury Theatre. We deliberately picked Spamalot as the one we would see at the matinee performance because we knew that understudies tend to play the matinees, and out of the three shows, that was the one we would be least disappointed to see the understudy in one of the main parts. As it turned out, the only understudy we saw all weekend was Charlotte Riby in the role of Tracy Turnblad on Saturday night, in place of Leanne Jones, who won the Best Actress Olivier Award for this part earlier this year, but we needn't have worried - Charlotte was fantastic. And besides, the most important thing was seeing Michael Ball in the role of Edna, and he didn't disappoint. I guess you could say that Michael Ball is the British equivalent of someone like Donny Osmond - he has large fan club, mainly composed of middle-aged women, but I think seeing him in 3-inch heels and wearing a fat suit would probably take the edge off the attraction, even for die-hard fans :).

Although on the surface it's a 'bubblegum' musical full of feel-good music, it does deal very honestly with the issue of segregation in 1960s America. The show also challenged me on a level I never expected: the first song is 'Good Morning Baltimore', where Tracy sings about the fact that she wakes up every morning excited about the day ahead and eager to find out what might be in store for her. It made me wonder why I don't get up and say 'Good Morning Southampton', at least if not literally then metaphorically. There's loads in my life to be thankful for, and yet I invariably start the day cursing that I have to go to the gym, or complaining about the weather, or wishing I could stay in bed an hour longer. I should start looking at things more positively: half of the world's population has to make do with living on less than a dollar a day, but I'm part of the half that doesn't, and I don't stop and think often enough about how many good things I have in my life. Of course, I don't expect an opportunity as life-changing as helping to eradicate segregation will come along every day, but perhaps I could keep an eye out for the smaller opportunities and take advantage of them more often...

Back to the show. As I mentioned, the songs are all so uplifting that it's hard not to like it, even if you're not a fan of musicals. We thoroughly enjoyed the show and I would definitely pay to see it again.