A Hair-Raising Experience

In which The Author goes to the theatre yet again

In keeping with my promise to support our local performing arts scene to the best of my ability, I took Clare E. to the Coliseum on Saturday night. The Colstars were doing a show called Hairspray, which was completely new to me.

Clare is about half my age, and far more in touch with contemporary shows than I am. We met about a year ago, (naturally) through our shared interest in music; she's another of the Aberdare karaoke regulars. She'd already warned me that it was along the lines of High School Musical. I'd replied that it couldn't possibly be any worse than Grease, which I suffered in the cinema when I was twelve years old. It was that summer's 'blockbuster hit', apparently, so we went to see it purely out of a sense of 'everyone else has seen it'.

[A digression: I should have known better, really, having endured 1977's 'summer blockbuster hit' Star Wars during our previous holiday. It was only a Close Encounter with Steven Spielberg's mystifying masterpiece, a few weeks after Grease, that assured my lifelong fascination with Science Fiction – which, after nearly four decades, very neatly landed me the job I'm doing now.

I think it's fair to say that Grease almost entirely – and perhaps unfairly – coloured my vision of US teen musicals. I found the 'story' impenetrable, maybe because I was a boy from the Valleys and not especially interested in chasing girls at the age of twelve. How the hell I was supposed to relate to a US high school setting is a mystery I've never quite solved. It's only over the past few years that I've been able to listen to some of the songs without wincing. I certainly couldn't sit through the film again, never mind experience the whole show.

Hannah W. gave me a little more background to Hairpsray at her mother's birthday party a couple of months ago. In particular, she was wondering how the Colstars would be able to cast the black characters. After all, Aberdare isn't the most culturally diverse of communities, in spite of the chunterings of the Debating Society et al. Showcase and Colstars have a young lad of Indian heritage in their line-up (he's the chap with a flair for visual comedy I mentioned when I wrote up Hello, Dolly recently), but otherwise Hannah and I were baffled.

'Surely they wouldn't "black up" for a show,' I said, rather aghast at the idea. I vaguely remember the horrible spectacle of The Black and White Minstrel Show on TV when I was a kid. The whole thing seemed unlikely at best, and very uncomfortable at worst.

A couple of weeks ago Liam J. came into the library on a Monday afternoon, and rescued me from the merciless droning of the Local History Dalek. We repaired to Thereisnospoon and had one of our enjoyable free jazz conversations over a couple of drinks. Liam told me that Hairpsray was inspired by the John Waters film, which is a cult classic among some of my friends. He gave me a bit more background, but I was still none the wiser (I've never seen any of Mr Waters' films, except Serial Mom).

While I was browsing the DVDs in a charity shop last week, I came across a copy of the film of the show of the film (if you know what I mean). I could have bought it there and then, but I decided I was going to go into the show completely fresh, and without any preconceptions of how it 'should' be done.

On Saturday I met Clare in town, and we had a pint before heading to the Coliseum. We were first through the doors, because I had to collect our reserved tickets from Julie G. (and that's a story in itself!) We had a Coke each in the bar while we waited for the start of the show. Chris D. came in while I was waiting to be served, and told me that his wife Cath and his daughter Mali were both in the cast. Soon after that, I spotted Iwan joining Chris and the rest of his family. He was the talk of the town this weekend, because his picture had appeared in Saturday's edition of The Times. They'd done a feature on the incredibly competitive RADA application process, and Iwan had been photographed with some of his fellow first-years. (Afterwards, in the foyer, I teased him that his brief stint in London had put years on him. According to the photo caption, he's twenty-five years old.) He'd come back for a flying visit to check out his friends' latest show.

Clare and I were sitting three rows from the front, right in the middle, which gave us great views of the stage. The musicians were tuning up as we took our seats, and a gauze curtain with the show logo was obscuring the set. The lights went down, Clare gave my arm a squeeze, and we were off.

And I can honestly say that I enjoyed every minute of it. I love that doo-wop style of pre-Beatles bubblegum teen pop anyway, and the music set my feet tapping from the word 'go'. Once again, the energy and enthusiasm of the youngsters blew me away. The acting and singing were on a par with anything you'd see in a professional production; the costumes were vivid and authentic for the period; the lighting was atmospheric and exciting; the minimal set design proved once again that it's possible to do more with less.

The only slightly uncomfortable parts (for me, anyway) were the scenes where white people were playing black people, with obvious Afro wigs and a bit too much fake tan, but not really carrying it off. It was a slight improvement on the old am-dram standby of cocoa powder, but it made for awkward watching all the same. I couldn't help wondering whether a quick shout-out at the University of South Wales mightn't have turned up some talented performers who'd have been more suited to the roles. Still, when you've got a man playing the protagonist's mother, you can put it all down to the high camp nature of the Waters original.

In fact, my Tweet sent at the end summed up the whole evening: 'High camp, high energy, high hair.' I should have added 'hi-jinx' to the proceedings, as I mentioned on the Colstars Facebook page later on. You could tell that it was the last night, because things were going wrong and everyone was trying desperately not to 'corpse' – with varying degrees of success. The audience were really in the spirit of the show as well, doing their best to make the actors laugh during the brief cock-ups. When the whole thing is as daft as Hairspray is, you can't help getting into the party spirit.

Clare and I repaired to the Harlequins Bowls Club for the afterparty, and I introduced her to a couple of the regulars, including Iwan, Dan T., who'd played Link Larkin, and James D., who'd played Corny Collins. It turned out that she already knew Zoe S. who'd taken the lead role of Tracy Turnblad, and Damon M. (who'd played Wilbur, Tracy's father). If she ever fancies getting involved with the Colstars, she wouldn't be going into a room full of complete strangers.

And once again, a couple of the youngsters asked me when I was going to come on board. Well, I've left it too late to try out for the panto, but their next full show will be Carousel, early next summer. Deb J. is going to lend me the film, as I haven't seen it since I was about twelve. Who knows what'll happen once the audition dates are announced?