Kinky Boots - Review

London Coliseum, London

****

Book by Harvey Fierstein
Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper
Directed by Nikolai Foster

Johannes Radebe

Strutting back into the West End, Cyndi Lauper’s Kinky Boots takes up a 16-week residence at the London Coliseum. Nikolai Foster directs, stunt-casting a brace of reality TV stars with Johannes Radebe of Strictly fame playing Lola and former X-Factor champion Matt Cardle as shoemaker Charlie Price.

Set around the turn of the century and loosely based on real events, the story moves on some clever pivots. Drag queen Lola bemoans that glamorous boots for men are impossible to source, at the same time as Price’s Northampton factory is on its uppers.  Harvey Fierstein's book sprinkles a hint of fantasy over the proceedings, as his glamorous tale of the bootmaker and the queen plays out to a spectacularly sequinned happy ending.

The role marks Radebe’s debut in musical theatre and he smashes it out of the park. Immaculate footwork is a given for the South African performer (whose accent to be fair, doesn’t quite match up to his having grown up in Clacton in Essex as the story demands), however it is not just his dance, but also his vocal strength and acting that add depth and colour to a complex role.

Cardle delivers a competent cobbler but is outshone by Radebe. Vocally strong - with the duet sung by the two leads in the first act, I’m Not My Father’s Son proving to be one of the evening’s more poignantly sensitive moments - his acting at times seems strained.

Lauren, the factory girl who falls in love with the boss, is played by Courtney Bowman in a powerhouse performance. Her solo The History of Wrong Guys (another first-half banger) is simply magnificent, with Bowman sustaining impressive energy levels throughout the show. A number of smaller roles are crucial to the story’s narrative and there are marvellous contributions from Billie-Kay, Billy Roberts and Rachel Izen that keep the evening perfectly paced. On the day of this review Joshua Beswick and Rio-Blake Power played Young Charlie and Young Lola respectively, with both boys delivering delightful work.  

The show’s creative credentials are excellent. Leah Hill choregraphs the dance-heavy production with whip-smart flair and precision. Robert Jones set design ingeniously appears to crop itself with luminous borders scaling the proscenium’s height and width – and his representation of the Northampton shoe factory is ingenious. Jone’s work is well complemented by Ben Cracknell’s lighting plots. In the Coliseum’s pit, Grant Walsh directs his nine-piece band to make fine work of Lauper’s powerful score.

With sky-high heels, a full-throttle score and a star turn stealing his every scene, this Kinky Boots doesn’t just return—it kicks down the door in spectacular style.

Booking until 11th July

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

Kinky Boots - Review

Adelphi Theatre, London


****


Book by Harvey Fierstein
Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper
Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell

The Company

Two years after its Broadway debut, Kinky Boots strides into London’s Adelphi Theatre, helmed again by Jerry Mitchell who is evidently looking to repeat the show’s award-winning success over here.

Based on the BBC film of a decade ago – in turn inspired by true events - Kinky Boots tells of a Northampton based shoe factory facing closure, that stumbles across the idea of making women’s fashion thigh-length boots but built for a man’s body. As their kinky boots go down a storm amongst the transvestite and drag community, the company is saved.

It’s a neat conceit and the story hinges around two men. Lola - really Simon from Clacton – an acclaimed drag act, who underneath the costumed façade is desperate to be accepted by the world around him, particularly his ageing father. Charlie is a straight guy who has inherited the shoe factory and who comes to learn to love and respect Lola (who has provided the inspiration along with the creative input and design for the factory’s kinky boots), for who he is.

But whilst there’s a decent integrity to the show’s pulse of self belief and determination, Fierstein’s book is too predictable. If Matt Henry’s Lola, in all his splendour, had burst into singing I Am What I Am from La Cage Aux Folles when he visits the Clacton old folk’s home, in place of the maudlin Hold Me In Your Heart it would not have been out of place. That being said, Henry is a stunning turn and his duet with Killian Donnelly’s equally impressive Charlie in Not My Father’s Son, makes for spine tingling musical theatre. 

In amongst all the fabulously choreographed dick-heavy chicks there’s a straight love story too. Amy Lennox’s Lauren offers way too much talent to a role that’s often not much more than cliché, rivalling Amy Ross’ deliciously cynical Nicola, Charlie’s frustrated fiancee who’s harshly not even offered one song credit. The view of a gritty Northampton through Fierstein and Lauper’s glitzy Broadway prism doesn’t quite convince and if only there was as much meat in the show’s story as there is in its well packed dancers' lunchboxes, then this could have been quite the perfect musical.

But no matter, because for the whooping girlies and twirlies in the audience, Kinky Boots undoubtedly hits the spot. Mitchell also choreographs and his vision creates some sensational routines. With numbers staged on fashion-show runways, workshop staircases and ridiculously (but with jaw-dropping brilliance) even on a moving factory conveyor belt, the song and dance of Kinky Boots bear the hallmarks of cutting edge West End originality.

Booking until 6th February