Kinky Boots - Theatre Royal Brighton

There are Kinky Boots purists out there who hate this new touring show, because it is a non-replica production. I’m not sure why they bothered booking tickets in the first place – perhaps they enjoy spending money to sit there and mock? The conveyor belt is gone: shock horror! Never mind that I can’t think of a shoe factory that would actually permit dancing on a conveyor belt, on safety grounds. Maybe the producers of this particular version of the show thought the same. An air gun used as a hair dryer, for hair that is already dry? Gone.

Joe Caffrey, Scott Paige, Liam Doyle, Newtion Matthews, Courtney Bowman & Kara Lily Hayworth. Photo credit: Oliver Rosser

As for the costumes of ‘Lola’s Angels’ being not nearly as glamorous as previous productions, they are commensurate – in some ways more so than before – with a company of drag queens on a budget. It also means the later costumes, used at an international footwear trade fair in Milan, sparkle all the more. It works, judging by the whooping and even occasional hollering from the Saturday night audience at Theatre Royal Brighton. Same for the kinky boots of the show’s title – the end result is a noticeable improvement on the factory’s previous efforts.

Lively audience responses to a Fun (with a capital F) show like this enhanced my enjoyment of the evening. This puts me at odds with the theatre etiquette brigade – the miserable sods who tut and sigh and tell people to ‘shut up’, irrespective of whether the targets of their vitriol are actually saying anything. On the night I went along, Dan Partridge in the role of Charlie Price gently encouraged even more cheering and applause on occasion. Why not? The people who Don’t Like Change can stew in their own misery. The rest of us can smile and laugh and enjoy proceedings.

Director Nikolai Foster has a trademark style of sorts – he likes his shows to be snappy, with never a moment wasted. Dramatic pauses are not his forte. Here, scene changes are swift – from time to time, so swift that members of the company are still exiting as the next scene is getting underway. Seemingly being in a hurry goes well with an impending deadline within the narrative. The staging of a boxing ring (if you know, you know) was an improvement, at least in my opinion, on the original Broadway and West End productions, doing away with ‘ring girls’ (we know what ‘round two’ is – it’s announced!), better resembling what a boxing ring would look like, and sharing the ring rope amongst more members of the ensemble.

Newtion Matthews’ Lola was sufficiently sassy, though I think I was more impressed by factory foreman George (Scott Paige), previously a relatively plain character given a slightly expanded role in this version, with infectious enthusiasm and campness. Courtney Bowman’s Lauren was a delight, with a highly convincing stage presence and a stunning singing voice. I also loved the cast singing almost entirely in British English – the West End version had lines spoken in British English, but musical numbers sung in American English (and the Broadway version, of course, had British accents so terrible they were hilarious: the cast recording is worth a listen for lols and giggles). “It’s beautiful,” as the company sings. Worth seeing.