Review by Stephen Stokoe
Kinky Boots
Sunderland Empire
2nd December 2025
There are a few musicals that warm the very cockles of your heart – and Kinky Boots is one of them. There is nothing better than watching Lola (ToshWanogho-Maud) strut her stuff around the stage in her signature and sexy red outfits. I have seen this show in many forms both professionally and on the community theatre circuit but this one dazzles in performance wise and in technical brilliance.
The story concerns Charlie Price (Dan Partridge) who, following the death of his ailing father, inherits his family’s shoemanufacturing factory in Northampton. He returns to find that the business is in severe financial trouble but after a chance, and somewhat unfortunate meeting with drag artist Lola, formulates an unusual plan to rescue the business by making the eponymous ‘kinky boots’ specially created for the gentleman female impersonator performer. Not only that, but Charlie has designs to launch his new exotic range at the Milan fashion show.
Kinky Boots, with a book by the Broadway and Hollywood legend Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by pop songstress Cyndi Lauper is an absolute delight to watch. Fierstein’s ascerbic wit and social commentary on LGBTQI+ rights and inclusion bites throughout the script with some superb one liners – especially for Lola/Simon and Lauper’s 80’s inspired anthems keep the pace and feel of the period running along nicely. It is, however, when Fierstein tackles the father/son relationships that this musical comes into its own. There are two very different characters but both have expectations thrust upon them from a very early age as we find out that Lola/Simon and Charlie have very similar backgrounds.
The set (Robert Jones) for this production is superb. Largely located within the factory itself you feel as if you are in a massive old fashioned industrial building. The rear wall is at an angle which cleverly alludes to depth. Ben Cracknell’s lighting adds to this wonderfully especially when he is allowed free rein to be outrageous and camp with Lola’s definitely not understated show stopping numbers ‘The Land of Lola’, ‘The Sex is in the Heel’, ‘Everybody Say ‘Yeah’’, and the finale is simply dazzling.
There are some really moving moments in the script. The usually bombastic, sarcastic, and brash Lola has a crisis of confidence and ends up dressed as Simon in the factory latrine in the first half, with Charlie coming to comfort him. Director, Nikolai Foster, stages this in a small area in the centre of the magnificent set, which gives a visual sense of the claustrophobia that both Simon and Charlie feel about living to the expectations of their respective fathers. It is very effective indeed.
There are many supporting characters, as you might expect in a working town factory. There are the salt of the earth lasses, Pat (Kathryn Barnes) and Trish (Jessica Daly); there is also mild mannered George (Scott Paige) and toxic masculinity infused Don (Billy Roberts). Sparks fly when Lola and Don clash over what it is to be a man in a scene that is as beautifully staged as it is written.
Lola’s angels, a ragtag group of cross-dressing performers add a colourful and fabulously choreographed (Leah Hill) backing team all accompanied by a superb band helmed by musical director Grant Walsh.
Charlie’s love interest in the show is initially his fiancée Nicola (Joanna O’Hare) a selfish individual who wants nothing to do with the factory or, for that matter, Northampton and then the wonderfully down to earth but nervous and insecure Lauren (Courtney Bowman). It is testament to both of these fine actors that the audience is willing the former to be unceremoniously kicked to the kerb to be replaced by the adorable latter who, following a historical list of wrong guys, is hoping that Charlie is the one.
The key to a successful production of Kinky Boots is finding two actors to portray the subtle differences and similarities between the two main characters – Charlie and Lola. Partridge, as Charlie,shows his vulnerable side magnificently and sings the role perfectly but it is Wanogho-Maud as Lola, who shines figuratively and literally from the stage in this superb, uplifting, andmemorable production that leaves the audience very much on the sparkly side of the Christmas spirit ahead of the wonderful Miss Rory and the incomparable Tom Whalley who will take to the stage next in the annual Sunderland Empire pantomime – Sleeping Beauty.
Kinky Boots is a must see – it is slick, it is sassy and it oozes pure sex.