The past year alone has seen
Made In Dagenham (boo) and
Bend It Like Beckham (hurray), and
now this 2012 musical of the 2005 film finally gets its West End
première under its original director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell.
They’re all in slightly left-field territory, too: in this case, the
based-on-a-true-story of a Northampton shoe factory which, faced with
closure, refocuses itself on the niche market of quality footwear for
crossdressers. The crucial “eureka!” moment comes when they figure out
how to engineer stiletto heels that will take the full weight of a man.
But, however loud the opening-night whoops for the drag chorus line, a
more universal element is required for maximum commercial oomph, and so
every “I am what I am” number defiantly addressing sexual identity is
matched by one about stepping out of your father’s shadow, as factory
owner Charlie and drag artiste Lola (
né
Simon) find how much they have in common and bond in a non-sexual way.
Personal identity through gay flamboyance is classical Harvey Fierstein
territory, and his script here is efficient yet engaging. He preserves
most of the gag lines from the original screenplay, and the changes he
makes are to compact or intensify particular effects rather than to
fabricate new episodes. Cyndi Lauper’s rock-pop songs, too, are
serviceable, with few breakouts other than the all-cylinders act
finales, the big Charlie/Lola duet “Not My Father’s Son” and, for me,
the verses of “The History Of Wrong Guys”, as factory employee Lauren
(Amy Lennox) realises she is falling for Charlie.
Matt Henry struts and slinks with abandon as Lola, also showing off
muscular upper arms… not that Chiwetel Ejiofor in the film was exactly
a delicate bloom either. Killian Donnelly’s Charlie is personable,
though his singing voice is more than halfway across the Atlantic (I
kept being reminded of the
Family Guy
gag about ’90s singer-songwriters whose every vowel sound was “eyyy”).
Jamie Baughan is likeably unlikeable as Don, the factory homophobe who
comes good in the end. It all does a fine job of using the screen story
for a bit of a cavort, but to get much more out of it I suspect you
might have to walk a mile in its thigh-high scarlet stilettos.
Written for the Financial
Times.