‘Pleasantly plump’ teenager Tracy Turnblad auditions for a spot on the local Baltimore dance show, The Corny Collins Show. But she’s horrified to see that the show is racially segregated and plans to remedy this.

There’s a reason for the gap of 7 years since 1981’s Polyester- Waters was trying (and failing) to secure funding for a sequel to Pink Flamingos, Flamingos Forever. When he turned his attention to a screenplay he’d written provisionally titled White Lipstick and based on the 60’s Baltimore dance show, The Buddy Deane Show, funding then fell into place but Waters thought better of the idea and instead, became fully invested in the project that would later become Hairspray.

The biggest shock regarding the film is that it was rated PG (this even shocked Waters who wanted to insert more swear words when he found out). Even with the family friendly rating, this doesn’t mean that the film dips in quality. No, there’s no faeces eating or singing anuses, but instead a very funny, very perceptive film that is half love letter to the past and a very welcome return to Waters as a filmmaker.

Whilst we have old favourites from the Dreamlamders stable appearing again (Divine, Mink Stole), we also get turns from the likes of Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry as well as new stars such as Ricki Lake. All are uniformly brilliant.

We also get dancing. Lots of dancing! And it’s all directed and photographed beautifully.

Hairspray is a joy from start to finish. It’s also, ironically, Waters’ most subversive movie. And I’m not talking about it being a PG. It’s subversive because it will cause those who enjoyed it to investigate further and rent other John Waters’ movies. Now, that’s brilliant! Just imagine…

Hairspray would also become a very popular Broadway musical and then a blockbuster remake also. Kerching!

Alas, there is one bittersweet moment and that is that it was Divine’s final performance. He would die shortly after the film’s premiere and the day before he was due to start a new recurring role on Married With Children. He can rest assured that he continues to inspire with countless classic movie roles and some of the grittiest HI-NRG records ever recorded. His performance on a 1984 episode of Top of the Pops received a record number of complaints. Now that’s style.

5 out of 5 stars