Review Roundup: KINKY BOOTS Opens in the West End

The UK premiere of Kinky Boots, Broadway's huge-hearted, high-heeled hit and winner of six Tony Awards, opens at London's Adelphi Theatre tonight 15 September 2015.

With a book by Broadway legend and four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (La Cage Aux Folles), and songs by Grammy and Tony winning pop icon Cyndi Lauper, this joyous musical features direction and choreography by two-time Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell (Legally Blonde, Hairspray).

Killian Donnelly and Matt Henry portray the central characters Charlie and Lola. Joining them are Amy Lennox (Lauren), Jamie Baughan (Don), Amy Ross (Nicola) and Michael Hobbs (George).

Inspired by true events, Kinky Boots takes you from a gentlemen's shoe factory in Northampton to the glamorous catwalks of Milan. Charlie Price is struggling to live up to his father's expectations and continue the family business of Price & Son. With the factory's future hanging in the balance, help arrives in the unlikely but spectacular form of Lola, a fabulous performer in need of some sturdy new stilettos.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: It may at times look as colourful as a pride carnival parade, but you can hear the creak of the production-line...Amid a surfeit of blandness, directed with more slickness than flair by Jerry Mitchell, one performance stands out. Not that of the gradually emboldened factory boss Charlie Price, who in Killian Donnelly's inhibited turn walks on the dull side...No, the tour de force comes from Matt Henry's fabulously accoutred Lola...whose diva-ish ways gives the evening a vital sense of drama. When he's surrounded by his gender-bending, go-go dancers, camping and vamping it up like there's no tomorrow, it's all pleasure, no pain. But around them, it's way too pedestrian. He's a sure-footed sensation, the clod-hopping show isn't.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: Jerry Mitchell's direction and choreography, in particular, give the show a physical dynamism that offsets the story's feelgood factor...It also helps that, as Charlie, Killian Donnelly...succeeds in making ordinariness interesting...The show is ultimately powered by Matt Henry as Lola...He makes you feel Lola takes pride in his profession...A finalist in BBC's The Voice, Henry also sings up a storm...You could make a case against the musical as a piece of preachy uplift about sexual tolerance. But it won me over through the quality of the lead performances, the verve of its staging and its conviction, in its fetishistic worship of thigh-high boots, that there's no business like shoe business.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: As you might expect from a musical with Harvey (Torch Song Trilogy, Cage Aux Folles) Fierstein on board, this Broadway show does not downplay the drag-queen angle. Lauper's poppy, nicely varied -- if lyrically straggly -- score gets off to a sweetly tuneful start but really kicks with "Sex Is In The Heel" and the Act One finale "Everybody Say Yeah" which turns into a joyous romp on the assembly line conveyor-belt...Killian Donnelly is a terrific performer and he delivers his numbers with full-throttle finesse...There's a bond between this character and Matt Henry's flamboyant, wittily drop-dead-knowing Lola...because they are both sadly conscious of having failed their fathers...But Kinky Boots too often feels as if it's what you'd get if you programmed a computer...asked it to come up with a tuner about transcending prejudices and the self-help enterprise of the working-classes. It's good fun but, in my view, a bit too formulaic to induce rapture.

Mark Shenton, The Stage: It's a traditional enough behind-the-factory-walls musical...but given a contemporary spin (and pop-accented score) by drawing on the inclusivity of the current embrace of all things transvestite...this story is grounded in a more authentic realism...And it is played with a lovely, loving degree of truth by Donnelly and Henry as they come tentatively to see the world through each other's eyes. Donnelly...is understatedly magnificent: a bloke who looks like Mr Ordinary, but turns out to be extraordinary in both voice and moves. And Henry, in the more showy role of Lola, is similarly adept at showing the vulnerability beneath the bravura exterior. They're surrounded by a hard-working, resourceful ensemble...Director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell marshals it all with smooth efficiency, and drives it with sexy, sassy class.

Michael Coveney, WhatsOnStage: Jerry Mitchell's stage version releases the grown-up tolerance theme -- crossing sexual borders, loving your dad, finding yourself, etc -- into feisty, traditional musical theatre areas of coming on strong, living the dream and saving the show...If there's a weakness, it's this sense of transatlantic blandness allied to the easy moderation of the message...with Kinky Boots, it's hard to see how the niche market of drag queens in thigh-high leather and killer heels will redeem the masses...The two boys have great reunion songs with their dads...And Lauper's enjoyable, punchy songs include an ingenious tango item at the top of the second act and a superb hymn to the tubular sex appeal of the the new range of shoes for a new range of men.

Chris Omaweng, London Theatre 1: The finales of both acts are equally energetic and enjoyable, leaving me exhilarated and thrilled...'Soul of a Man'...has Charlie Price (Killian Donnelly) belting out lyrics not so much lifting the roof of the Adelphi Theatre as coming close to incinerating it...he is so intensely engrossing to watch on the West End stage that here, one could be easily forgiven for truly believing he really is the executive chairman of a shoe factory in Northampton. The songs by Cyndi Lauper sometimes help drive the story, yet sometimes support an extended and impressive song and dance, allowing audiences to sit back and enjoy the ride...there is something resolutely British about seeing the underdog coming through and making it out on top...The strong cast and largely upbeat score more than overshadow the slightly preachy undertones in the second act.

Terry Eastham, London Theatre 1: Director/Choreographer Jerry Mitchell...has put together a truly amazing show that easily lives up to its hype. The story itself has a nice ring of reality about it -- as it should since it was based on a true story...The music is perfect...Turning to the cast, Killian's portrayal of Charlie was spot on. Portraying a man forced to work in a business he really disliked, by a father that didn't really believe in him and with a fiance for whom control and status were everything is not easy but Killian pulled it off perfectly and, that moment where he suddenly realised what he wanted his life to be was just superb...Matt Henry was absolute perfection as the larger than life drag queen who hid her vulnerability and fear behind a mask of makeup and a personality bigger than Michelin Man after he's had too many pies...Performing as a drag queen takes a talent that many could not muster, but Matt really has it.

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail: Savour that sole. Broadway import Kinky Boots is a cheerily over-the-top musical about, er, the footwear industry in Northampton. Throw in a chorus line - I almost said second row - of statuesque drag queens, some of whom do stage acrobatics in three-inch high heels. I swear the Adelphi's foundations shuddered. The way these 'ladies' cavort and roll their eyes and waggle their sixpack-tummied booty, this show is all about tongues - and in a way that would make a shires cobbler thwack his thumb in astonishment.

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard: It would also be easy to pick holes in the contrived plot. But the set pieces are pulsatingly choreographed and there is no shortage of catchy tunes. With its infectious energy and richly enjoyable performances, Kinky Boots feels like a show that has got legs.

Photo Credit: Matt Crocket

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