Everyone wants to know my true Kinky Boots story, says shoemaker

Everyone wants to know the "true story" of Kinky Boots, said the man who inspired the film that went on to become a hit musical. When Steve Pateman's family-run shoe company W.J Brooks experienced financial trouble in the 1990s, he turned to making high-heeled women's shoes in men's sizes for transgender people, drag artists and anyone else who wanted to buy them. The story of the factory in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, was later made into a BBC documentary, a 2005 film and West End musical. "It's all good for Northamptonshire, it's not my story anymore it's a Northampton story - it belongs to us all now. And it's good for the county which is what we need nowadays," Pateman said. A revival of the stage adaptation will be performed at the London Coliseum and will star Strictly Come Dancing's Johannes Radebe and X-Factor winner Matt Cardle. Pateman's business W.J Brookes was founded in 1889 and four generations of family worked there making high-quality shoes and boots. The factory's decision to create a new product line featured in a BBC documentary, Trouble at the Top: The Kinky Boot Factory, which inspired Miramax Films to turn the story into a movie. The film was later adapted

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