CYNDI LAUPER

Cult film Kinky Boots is ready to sashay its way into London’s West End, complete with a Tony award winning score by true LGBT ally and musical icon Cyndi Lauper.

Words by Simon Button

Cyndi’s Kinky Boots Just Want to Have Fun

The voice is unmistakable: very New York, very distinctive, very Cyndi Lauper. She takes my call at 9am NYC time sounding very chipper, but then with Kinky Boots – the musical for which she wrote the Tonywinning music and lyrics – heading to the West End as it continues to wow ’em on Broadway she has reason to be cheerful.

Broadway composer is a new string to Cyndi’s bow. Now 62, she came to fame back in 1983 with the pop juggernaut Girls Just Want To Have Fun. In the 30-plus decades since there have been lots of amazing songs (Time After Time, True Colors, I Drove All Night, Into The Nightlife – the video for which was filmed in NYC gay bar Splash), movie roles, a stint on Broadway in The Threepenny Opera and even her She’s So Unusual reality show.

If you want the full story look her up on the net or better yet read her bestselling 2012 memoir. She is, you’ll discover if you don’t know already, so much more than a girl who just wants to have fun. Lauper, who has a gay sister, is a tireless supporter of LGBT causes. She co-founded the True Colors Fund to raise awareness and inspire action and is campaigning to get homeless LGBT youth off the streets.

Marches and Pride gigs are like her second home and it makes perfect sense that she was keen to write the music and lyrics for Kinky Boots, the stage musical version of the film about a fierce drag queen named Lola (played over here by Matt Henry) and the unlikely alliance she forms with shoe factory boss Charlie (Killian Donnelly). The film, which is something of a cult classic, came out in 2005 and starred Chiwetel Ejiofor as a very sassy Lola, turning heads as she turns up at Charlie’s Northampton factory in search of the perfect pair of heels. Harvey Fierstein, who penned the show’s book, opted to keep it in a British accent and Lauper rose to the challenge of writing her first-ever Broadway score.