By Alison

Toronto steps in for Baltimore, as Hairspray returns to the big screen. We suppose this was inevitable (where was this musical resurgence 10 years ago, when Torontoist was a junior high theatre nerd who cared about such things? Oh well, we’ve always been ahead of our time). We are simultaneously completely mystified and oddly intrigued at the prospect of a cross-dressing John Travolta as the beloved Edna Turnblad. In fact, there is a strangely surreal pop cultural poetry to the notion of John Travolta recreating movie roles originated by Divine – something so wrong, it’s right.