KINKY BOOTS
  Adelphi Theatre, London WC2

Opened 15 September, 2015
***

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 ( 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.

Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.

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