“Hairspray,” 8 September 2007, theater We both enjoyed and were disappointed in this film version of the Broadway musical about an overweight girl becoming a teen dance star and fighting racism on TV in 1962 Baltimore. Based on John Waters’s classic comedy, the musical has some good, nasty songs but, in the end, I just felt like something was off. . I loved Waters in a cameo as a flasher, Rikki Lake as a talent scout, and Jerry Stiller as Mr Pinky. All were in the original. Unfortunately, I didn’t think John Travolta made it work as Edna Turnblad, the role Divine did in the original. He always seemed to be a guy wearing a dress. His voice didn’t work for me at all and, in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, “what man hands!”. Christopher Walken as Wilbur Turnblad, however, was worth watching, as was Queen Latifah, who acquits herself well as Motormouth Maybelle in the role originally done to perfection by Ruth Brown. Nikki Blonsky was ok as Traci, but I always missed Rikki Lake’s edgier buoyancy. The whole tone was much more secure than the original. Bronwen the Elder liked it a lot, but our daughter said she thought the Broadway show was much better. It undoubtedly was. The Seaweed/Penny love match was much more chaste and genuine in the original. This had a sort of tawdry, sordid feel to it. See the original first