Kinky Boots gets 'blistering' reviews as it opens in West End

Kinky Boots is inspired by the true story of a shoe factory in Northampton

Kinky Boots, a musical based on a true story about a shoe factory in Northampton, has opened in London's West End to strong reviews.

The show's theme gave most critics the opportunity to trot out plenty of puns.

The Guardian said it "puts its best foot forward" while the Mail hailed it as "blistering!"

Already a hit on Broadway, Kinky Boots features songs from pop star Cyndi Lauper who won the 2013 Tony Award for best original score for her work.

Lauper, writer Harvey Fierstein and director Jerry Mitchell joined the cast and producers on stage during a standing ovation at Tuesday's opening night at the Adelphi Theatre.

Among the famous names in the audience were theatre impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh, TV host Graham Norton, diver Tom Daley and singer Beverley Knight.

Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper at the press night of Kinky Boots at the Adelphi Theatre

The story centres around Charlie Price (Killian Donnelly) who turns his ailing shoe factory into a success by making thigh-high boots after a chance meeting with drag queen Lola (Matt Henry).

"You could make a case against the musical as a piece of preachy uplift about sexual tolerance," said The Guardian's Michael Billington, who awarded four stars.

"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."

Quentin Letts, giving four stars in The Mail, said the show "canters along with engaging verve and vim" after a "dull" opening 15 minutes.

"Well done the wardrobe mistress and the backstage dressers who squeeze the cast into various items of footwear," he added.

Full of sole

Killian Donnelly (Charlie) and Amy Lennox (Lauren) in Kinky Boots

Kinky Boots director Jerry Mitchell told the BBC on opening night how he took his cast to Northamptonshire to learn about the art of shoe-making.

The county has a centuries-long association with footware manufacture and several specialist companies still operate there.

The factory of family-run company, Tricker's, provided the template for the exterior set design in the musical.

"When we started rehearsals I took the whole cast to Tricker's in Northampton," Mitchell said. "And then all the Tricker's people came and saw a preview last week - and they flipped out!"

He said the show's message was about "accepting people for who they are and not making judgements about people before you get to know them".

And he hoped it would go down well with British audiences. "I tell every cast I work with that you guys grow up with panto, so seeing a man address isn't really that big a deal."

Other four star reviews came from The Stage and Whatsonstage.com.

The latter's Michael Coveney said the Broadway import was "a riotous take" on the 2005 film version, which was itself inspired by a BBC documentary, Trouble at the Top: The Kinky Boot Factory, which was broadcast in 1999.

"It's interesting how British musicals with commercial pretensions have focused on communities in industrial decline - from Billy Elliot to Made in Dagenham - as if to galvanise the public into a sense of regeneration through theatre," he said.

The Stage's Mark Shenton said: "I suspect Kinky Boots may have legs and not just the muscular ones that are encased in thigh-high, stiletto-heeled footwear that are specially designed for transvestite use."

Matt Henry (Lola) and the Angels in Kinky Boots

Less impressed was The Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish, whose two-star review said: "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."

He did, however, praise Matt Henry's "tour de force" performance as Lola. "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 booking at London's Adelphi Theatre until 6 February.