Super-size fun

This film is fun. It is fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. It might be the most fun you can have with your clothes on or, if you have been married a good while, then with them off. John Travolta as Mrs Edna Turnblad is fun. Christopher Walken as Mr Wilbur Turnblad is riotous fun. Newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad, the big girl with the big hair and the big heart, is fun and she’s a terrific dancer. From its opening number — the pounding showtune ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ — this film leaps at you with such joy and vigour and generosity you cannot reject it. It pins you down and has its way with you, clothes on or off. It doesn’t care. It is quite ruthless in this way.

OK, some have been sniffy about this version of Hairspray already. It’s not, they say, as original as John Waters’s original film.