News: Kinky Boots The Musical picks up six Tony Awards

Article by Ian Gallagher, Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Kinky Boots, the musical based on a British comedy set in a Northampton shoe factory, walked away with six Tony Awards as its status as a Broadway hit was confirmed.

The show, inspired by the 2005 film about a failing factory that is turned around after it starts making fetish footwear, was named best musical at the ceremony in New York.

It also won best original score for singer Cyndi Lauper, who wrote the music and lyrics, and best leading man for Billy Porter.

The show tells the story of Charlie Price, who has suddenly inherited his father’s shoe factory, which is on the verge of dissolving. The unlikely salvation comes in the form of transforming the factory into a fetish boot fashion house.

Kinky Boots is based on the true story of Earls Barton shoemaker Steve Pateman’s Divine Footwear, which was featured in an episode of the BBC documentary series Trouble at the Top.

Pateman’s family’s manufacturing company WJ Brooks Ltd was on the brink of collapse until he received a random phone call from a woman from a fetish shoe shop in Folkestone, who asked Steve if he could supply her with ladies’ shoes in men’s sizes.

The Tony Awards, more formally known as The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, recognises achievement in live Broadway theatre.