Review: Hair

UCLU Musical Theatre were never going to murder Hair.

Theirs is a talented group of performers who, in this production, channel the barefooted exuberance and political angst of the Tribe, a rabble of New York hippies, to trippy and well-choreographed perfection.

As always, it’s great fun. However, despite some genuinely glorious highs, one can’t help but feel that this Bloomsbury show isn’t as consistently fantastic as it should be.

This is the dawning of the age of a reasonably good musical

Hair is as much a clever, biting satire on the starchy conservative politics of 1960s America as it is a rock epic, pitting the free-spirited dreaminess of the Tribe against a generation of white men in sensible shoes who would much rather see them eating TV dinners and dropping napalm on Vietnamese children.

Director Ben Hiam clearly gets this, and his cast do a fantastic job of acting not as lazy caricatures, but real, passionate people. The American accents are refreshingly good, and the acting is arguably the most impressive aspect of the show – the diffuse roles of wannabe Mancunian, middle-class parents, wide-eyed bohemian, lovelorn mother-to-be and Ulysses S. Grant are nailed.

The issues that Hair drags into its drugged-up scrum of free love, free spirits and excitable youth – race, sex, war, morality and politics – are given life by the confidence, enthusiasm and assured delivery of a smartly-cast company.

Be it Tristan French’s boyish and hilarious Woof leaping from piggyback to piggyback, Joe Penny’s Berger offering his jeans to an audience member, or Harlan Davies’ Hud setting the world to rights with flippant one-liners and a steeliness that had shades of Muhammad Ali – in his words, Vietnam was just “white people sending brown people to fight yellow people to protect what they stole from the red people” – the cast do a tremendous job of making a show with no clearly-defined narrative so entertaining.

Richard Upton was particularly impressive as Claude, who doesn’t quite manage to dodge the draft and ends the show as an unconventional tragic hero. Upton turns in a sensitive, layered performance, and is eminently likeable, as is Hannah Harris as Jeanie.

Musically, key numbers and big set-pieces are flawless – the opening and closing numbers in particular. This is thanks in no small part to Lizzie Jay, whose ludicrously powerful and soulful voice sets the tone for the everything this show proves itself to be – cuttingly funny, energetic, and moving.

However, the strength of some individual performances draws attention to the weaknesses of others, and whilst the harmonies are fantastic, this leads to noticeable lapses in quality.

That being said, however, we don’t lose much of the pathos or raw emotion that underpins everything – thanks both to the fact that this society is such a dependably competent one, and also thanks to the musicians, whose rendition of the score is faithful to its 60s roots – bouncy, bluesy and rocky in equal measure.

Berger recounts his gap yah

Hiam and his cast are almost their own worst enemies – despite a solid production, it’s clear that this time they might have set a bar that’s a bit too high for everyone to make it over cleanly and easily all of the time.

It would be churlish of me to say this show was in any way bad, however. It is several shades of good, and fantastic at the right moments. Hair received a standing ovation last night, which it deserved, if only for the sheer ambition and enthusiasm of the dedicated team behind it. You would have to be heartless not to enjoy this show.

It’s very much a student production, and it’s not going to change your life, but you can’t complain for a fiver. With some more work, this show could be something really special.

Hair is at the Bloomsbury Theatre at 7:30pm tonight and tomorrow.

Photographs courtesy of Tirion Jenkins.