Hairspray

If ever there was a show to make you feel glad you bought a ticket, it's Hairspray; specifically, Adelaide Youth Theatre's new production.

It's a great choice with which to showcase the budding talents of young performers, but this is not to suggest that the play is necessarily an easy one to have a hit with. Despite its outwardly bright and breezy nature, Hairspray embodies themes that require delicate handling as well as smart casting decisions. Happily, it is difficult to find faults of any real significance here, but it is very easy to enjoy and admire such a smashing success. Urgent memo to Adelaide audiences: see it while you can!

The show takes us back in time and across the oceans, to a USA of the early '60s, where segregation is still an everyday reality, but Tracey Turnblad is a more-than-usually open-minded, kind-hearted (and larger-sized) schoolgirl who dreams of nationwide TV success as a dancer on The Corny Collins Show. Facing opposition and ridicule from many, but also support from her lovable and eccentric relatives, Tracey comes to learn that some things are worth fighting for, even worth being imprisoned for, and that nothing brings people together and lifts them up quite like dancing...!

The first thing to be said is that director David Gauci has approached the important issue of race relations in the script by utilising a pragmatic-yet-shrewd approach to casting, where any objections to visual incongruity should be safely swept aside for an audience by the combination of sheer talent and enthusiasm displayed by the performers. The necessary points are made successfully enough, in scenes that are sometimes so moving - even soul-stirring - in their conviction, that it is hard to imagine anyone who could fail to fall under the spell of this show.

The opening night cast were a knockout! (There are nearly a dozen roles that will feature alternate performers across the season.) Georgia Brooomhall gives Tracey a warm, sweet, strong, impressively feisty characterisation. In tandem with the slyly funny Callum Byrne as Edna Turnblad, and the ever-likeable Brendan Cooney as dad Wilbur, a lovely family of sympathetic protagonists sits at the centre of this show.

It's great to see Mark Stefanoff back on the Adelaide stage, filling the role of Corny Collins with sheer charisma, while Georgia Payze is impressive as the odious Velma. Jordan Tomljenovic is dazzlingly magnetic - not to mention acrobatic - in the role of Seaweed; Georgia Bolton - playing Motor Mouth - will leave you speechless at the strength and skill of her singing. Practically stealing the show was the superb comic performance of Emily Wood as Penny. This is a formidable ensemble, ladies and gentlemen, without a doubt!

Projections and animations are integrated brilliantly, costume and set design feel just right, the band is capable and versatile, but sound levels were occasionally too timid. With better balancing of microphones, the lead vocalists can hopefully have the punch that they, their voices, and the lyrics deserve.

You'd be hard pressed to find a better time in town than . This particular band of Adelaide Youth have demonstrated decisively that the future of local theatre is in good - and very talented - hands.

Anthony Vawser

Photography: Slinks Media - Steve Lindquist