Kinky Boots, Adelphi Theatre, review: 'deserves a kicking'

You know how it is. Your father dies, leaving you to head home and run (reluctantly) his ailing shoe firm in Northampton. You’re laying off staff when you have a eureka moment: what about Lola, that flamboyant drag queen who accidentally knocked you out the other night and brought you round in his club? The thigh-high boots he and his “girls” were wearing weren’t quite robust enough: if, with a little help from your new-found, cross-dressing pal, you could cater to this niche male need, wouldn’t that save the day?

That’s the bare-bones synopsis of Kinky Boots, the musical based on the 2005 Britflick of the same name, itself based (with abundant liberties taken) on a BBC documentary about a shoe factory that pulled itself up by the bootstraps, having spotted a similar gap in the market. It has been the toast of Broadway and is now strutting its stuff on the Strand. Given that it marks a “homecoming” (returning to its narrative source) and that it’s walking tall (six Tony awards, plenty of lucrative audience footfall, with new territories – Canada, Australia – opening up all the time) it might seem ungracious to give it a kicking. But a kicking I feel obliged to give it.

I’m not suggesting that anyone presented with the scenario above could rustle up a fun, passably enjoyable two-hour entertainment; but it does often feel as though Cyndi Lauper (music & lyrics), and Harvey Fierstein (book) sat down and went: OK, so we need an establishing song that gets us in the plucky-quaint British mood, some hi-NRG anthems to make the party go with a swing, a few soul-searching ballads to bring out the main theme of overcoming the baggage of disapproving fathers and arriving at acceptance – and Bob’s your uncle, or whatever they say Stateside. 

It may at times look as colourful as a pride carnival parade, but you can hear the creak of the production-line. It doesn’t help that the Adelphi only recently hosted Made in Dagenham, another rather formulaic vision of blue-collar types rallying together against a background of industrial uncertainty.

In theory, this has got the edge. Lauper is a pop phenomenon who in her greatest hits (Girls Just Want to Have Fun, True Colors) can make you want to let your hair down or choke back the tears. Fierstein has form in this field too: he authored the cult classic Torch Song Trilogy, about a drag queen living in Seventies/Eighties New York, and supplied the book for the much-loved musical of La Cage Aux Folles. But neither shines for more than moments here. The vapid finale exhorting us to “Just be who you wanna be!” sums it all up.

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, whether at work or romantically confused play. No, the tour de force comes from Matt Henry’s fabulously accoutred Lola (played in the film by Chiwetel Ejiofor) 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.

Kinky Boots is at the Adelphi Theatre until 14 September 2016. Book now to avoid disappointment. Visit Telegraph Tickets or call 0844 871 2118.