Kinky Boots

Review by David Cox

We have been attending the Edinburgh festival since 1986 and in those days most shows were based in the New Town, especially round the Assembly Rooms. In more recent years the shift of the festival has moved across the bridge , especially to Pleasance. (Oddly, we didn't see any shows at Pleasance Courtyard this year, our one show there was cancelled).  

As we only had 5 full days this year I thought I would fit in 2 "themed" days to enable us to visit shows and venues we wouldn't normally frequent. On Wednesday we concentrated upon Free Shows (which worked so well we will repeat this experiment next year). Today, we are only seeing shows in the "New Town" starting at the Hill Street Theatre for "Kinky Boots". 

One of my DarkChat rules is never to see a show you can at home (Cardiff, in my case). Well, rules are there to be broken and as this was always a show I had always fancied, and generally we have been impressed by the quality of musical theatre in the Scottish capital I thought I would take a chance and set off for a relatively early 10.50am. And what a great decision that has proved to be.

"Kinky Boots" the musical is written by Cyndi Lauper based on a film starring Joel Egerton based upon a real life story of a Northamptonshire shoe making firm who avoided redundancy by specialising in boots for Drag queens. 

The story is astonishing, the songs are excellent, but what makes the show such a triumph are the performers. It is weird watching a show in Edinburgh which has an interval but this gave me the opportunity to talk to the mother of one of the cast. Because the accents were so good , the acting so good and the singing breathtaking I assumed a lot of performers were professional and had come up from London.

I was therefore stunned to discover they were all local performers and only had a two week rehearsal period, although they did have long days. The cast is uniformly good, although I must single out for praise Ellliot Mclean, Lauren Johnston and Matty J. I was also stunned to hear that a lot of the cast were also in "Legally Blonde" and Matty J was rushing off to appear in the "Hunchback Of Notre Dame".

This show proves why it is good to pick something you wouldn't normally select as it reminds you that the depth of talent available in the festival is truly astonishing. Having staggered into the venue having barely woken up we virtually danced down the stairs afterwards having witnessed what I suspect is one of the most uplifting shows in the Scottish capital this festival.

If you want to see some impressive young Scottish talent in a truly invigorating and feel good show rush to Hill Street Theatre.