Image copyright Matt Crockett
The story of a struggling Northampton shoe manufacturing unit maybe is not the obvious concept for a hit stage present, however Kinky Boots has simply celebrated 5 years on Broadway, is into its fourth yr within the West End and is now going on a UK tour.
The stage musical, tailored from a 2005 movie, which in flip was impressed by a true story, places the highlight on a man who saves his manufacturing unit from collapse by producing erotic footwear impressed by an encounter with cross-dressing cabaret singer known as Lola.
The present was a good match with audiences and critics, and gained six Tony Awards on Broadway and three Olivier Awards within the West End.
Cyndi Lauper, who wrote the music, nonetheless cannot fairly consider it.
"I remember first seeing it in Chicago and watching the audience and they were up, and I kept saying to the producer, 'Is it a hit?' and he'd go 'I dunno, Cyn'," the singer tells BBC News.
"Even when it won best musical [at the Tony Awards], then I said 'OK, is it a hit now?' and he was like, 'OK yeah, it's a hit'."
The musical's 12-month UK tour will start, fittingly, in its non secular dwelling of Northampton in September.
The present explores themes akin to friendship and self-acceptanceinterspersed with some hummable tunes.
"I just think it's an important message to get out, and it makes so many people so happy," says Cyndi.
"In this day and age, it's good to stress acceptance, and changing the world when you change your mind."
So how many instances does Cyndi estimate she's seen the present now?
"I have no idea, because I've been watching it since the beginning in Chicago. I do come back again and again because I check the sound," she laughs.
"It's so completely different in each territory, and that is what makes it attention-grabbing. It's everybody's take on it.
"In Germany it's different. In England it's important because the story is from England. I actually grew up next to two factories, so I really related to this story."
Writing the e-book for a musical was a very completely different artistic course of to performing as a solo artist within the 1980showever, Cyndi says, it was one she discovered fulfilling, primarily as a result of it concerned working with a staff.
"Well, it was different in the '80s for me," she explains.
"I used to be very targeted on caring for my voice, I had to do that, I had to do this, the visible... there have been days once I labored 24 hours. And I would be like 'wait a minute, I did not go to sleep right this moment, I've to go to sleep'.
"It's different... this is a collective, and it's the biggest band you'll ever have. Even when the actors come in you're changing things because you want it to sound like it's from them. It's like wearing a dress, not everybody's the same size, so you gotta tailor it. So that's what we were doing."
She provides: "You work onerous on one thing collectively together with your staff. It was a massive staff, you realize, and I am similar to the well-known man right here. I signify.
"You don't know if it's gonna... you just lose track of standing back and watching people watch it. And when you see how happy they getit's amazing."
As the present enters its fourth yr in London, Cyndi says she'd "like to see it do at least five years, maybe six".
"[Long enough] for folks to simply come and consider it as having a good time, and feeling the love. Because there's a lot of various sorts of individuals within the present, not everyone's the identical.
"And it's about friendship. Not just acceptance and accepting yourself, but friendship and family, and saving people's jobs, because you grew up with them."