PG, 110mins

John Travolta has made plenty of mistakes as an actor, but he has rejected every film role that could tarnish his 1970s musical legacy. Now, though, his resolve has finally snapped, and in spectacular fashion. In Adam Shankman’s new version of the musical Hairspray, Travolta stuffs himself into a fat suit to play a housewife made famous by the portly transvestite Divine.

The shock of seeing this iconic dancefloor legend return to his musical roots as a 48-st pantomime dame is not easy to swallow. The make-up is monstrous. Travolta’s face is a fleshy pink pumpkin. His watery blue eyes look far too close for comfort. His breasts threaten to burst out of his dressing gown, and his beehive is basically a hedge.

BACKGROUND

• Hairspray

• Hairspray - Sunday Times Review

• Hairspray, review of the 1988 film

• Travolta as you've never seen him

• Obituary of Divine

On the move: John Travolta

John Travolta talks about his career, his huge carbon footprint and playing a woman

Related Internet Links

• 2007 London Film Festival coverage

• Times Online Film Trailers

Yet Travolta is a blubbery scream as Edna, the doting mother of Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a plump schoolgirl whose waking dream is to dance on The Corny Collins Show on television. “But darling, the neighbours haven’t seen me since I was a size 10,” whimpers Edna when Tracy tries to drag her from the ironing board to the TV studio in Baltimore in the summer of 1962. Corny’s dance show is a local version of Top of the Pops and Tracy is an instant sensation. But the boppy bohemian is working-class trash, the image of her mother, and inordinately fond of “negroes”.

“I want that chubby communist girl off the show,” fumes the boss of the hairspray company that sponsors the programme.

“I’ll gladly throw the harpoon,” simpers Michelle Pfeiffer’s poisonous producer. But Tracy’s record ratings and loyal schoolfriends thwart the evil plans of these ageing racist bigots.

I haven’t seen John Waters’ 1988 original, or the Broadway musical the film inspired in 2002, but the pulsating medley of jukebox tunes composed by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman feels remarkably fresh and sharp.

I normally loathe musicals. The unexpected pleasure of Hairspray is that it doesn’t beg to differ. The film spoofs Technicolor nostalgia and revels in the improbable odds of hailing a bus full of black delinquents who can put together an Oscar-winning dance piece before the next stop. This crude wink to unbelievers is the disarming magic.

You are charmed by Blonsky’s groovy Tracy, and slightly horrified by her dress size. In every other respect she is the classic musical heroine with a pure voice and electric smile. But it’s her batty parents who steal the show. Christopher Walken plays Tracy’s infatuated dad and his saucy overtures to Mom (Travolta) are squirmingly awful. They sizzle like two heterosexual wrestlers who would rather lose a limb than kiss.

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