Star cast talk about bringing Hairspray to Liverpool Empire

Aug 12 2010 Flintshire Chronicle

Laura Davis catches up with Les Dennis and Michael Starke – the Liverpool-born stars of hit musical Hairspray coming to the Empire Theatre this summer

When it visits Liverpool this August, Hairspray will be as Scouse as a lamb and vegetable stew, cooked until tender and served with a dollop of red cabbage.

As well as Les Dennis reprising his role of the loveable joke shop owner Wilbur Turnblad and Michael Starke making his debut as his wife Edna, their daughter Tracy will be played by Laurie Scarth, whose dad is from Kirkby.

“I’m very nervous,” confesses Starke.

“But I’m looking forward to it and it’s great to be starting the show in Liverpool because my family and friends can come to see it.”

Edna Turnblad, the overpowering mother of “pleasantly plump” teenager Tracy, has something of a split personality.

During the UK tour she is being played by Starke, Brian Conley and Michael Ball, who won an Olivier Award for his portrayal of the larger-than-life character.

The ex-Brookside and Coronation Street star has been posing for photographs in one of his many costumes just prior to our meeting at the Empire Theatre, where the show will visit in August.

He is flattered to hear that he looks surprisingly feminine in his 1960s swirly-patterned dress with fluffy blue trim.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “It was one of my big fears that I would not look like a woman.

“Edna is meant to be a real woman, not a man in drag or a pantomime dame.

“I remember hearing that Graham Norton, when he did Cage au Folles, was disappointed he didn’t look like a pretty woman. Some men, when they put on a dress, end up looking like thugs even if they don’t look that way to begin with.”

Although the lead in the show is really Tracy, Edna often steals her limelight.

To begin with she is a timid recluse, concerned that her daughter’s appearance on The Corny Collins Show – a TV dance programme for teenagers – will cause her to be laughed at due to her weight. Cue the song Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now.

Drawn out of the house by Tracy’s success, she is given a dramatic make-over to welcome her to the 60s.

“Just everything about her appeals,” says Starke. “The fact that she’s a woman – that’s such a challenge for an actor and it’s so different from anything people would expect me to do.

“Hairspray is a really great opportunity for me to do something different and hopefully it will take my career on a new path.”

He is keen to make Edna his own, he reveals.

“I don’t know how yet because I haven’t done it on stage,” he says.

“I have an idea that came from my instincts when I had a look at the script and I think I will be different to Brian Conley and Michael, but I won’t know if it will work until I’m on stage.

“It’s like any acting job. You have an idea of how you’d play Hamlet or an Arthur Miller part but it’s not until you’re actually doing it that you really know.”

Behind all the fun and dancing, Hairspray has a serious message.

Black teenagers are not allowed on The Corny Collins Show except for on a monthly Negro Day. Tracy steps in to end the segregation.

“The great thing about a show like this is that kids will come away asking questions without feeling bombarded,” says Starke.

“It’s different to if they went to see a show about apartheid for example, when they might feel overwhelmed.

“And at the end we all come together for the big finale number and everyone’s on their feet as one group.”

The musical will be Les Dennis’ third stint at the Empire this year, and it has just been announced he will return in December for the theatre’s panto season.

His last appearance there was as Mr Fulton in High School Musical 2. His rehearsals for Hairspray began while he was still playing that role.

“It was tricky at first,” he says. “I had two weeks when I was doing both.

“But Hairspray is amazing. It lives up to all the hype.”

He is particularly pleased to be playing the role of Wilbur at the Empire, he adds.

“When I was six or seven I came here to see Tommy Steele in Jack And The Beanstalk and it was the first time I thought ‘I want to do that’. The fact that they’ve got our pictures three times our height outside the front of the theatre where it all started is so lovely.”

Hairspray is at the Liverpool Empire from August 17-September 4. Tickets range from £43.50-£18.50. Ring the box office on 0844 847 2525 or visit www.LiverpoolEmpire.org.uk.