Skip to main content

Camden Fringe Review: FEET by Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play at Etcetera Theatre, London

While some issue plays tend to miss the point of providing fun and entertainment as well as making their point on a relevant issue, FEET is certainly not one of them. Written, produced, directed and performed by the two-person team of Emma And Lawrence Wrote A Play, this is clearly a labour of love of the two, full names Emma Brown and Lawrence Smith, it is fun and engaging throughout.

It's "issue" is loosely about selling your body for money or art and how far you might be willing to push it. Lucy Winwood (Emma Brown) is your typical young actress, struggling hard to get those money making roles, or roles in general, and in need of money she stumbles upon the world of feet fetishism (as you, of course, would) and slowly from just images of her feet sold online, it becomes feet in jelly and then finally personal meetings with clients for full on feet interaction.

The path that FEET takes is that is this denigration of your body in selling your feet actually worse than performing a theatre role that involves full frontal nudity? It is an intriguing idea and it leaves Lucy at odds with her, frankly not very nice, boyfriend Ben (Lawrence Smith) and raises some interesting moral ideas. FEET treats this though in an unpreaching and fun way, creating likeable and interesting scenarios amid its slight weirdness. Touching on a neat spin on the increasing modern trend of revenge porn as well, leaves it an increasingly clever play.

Performance wise it is great, with Emma excellent in her single role, exuding fun and realism in this oddly developing lifestyle, while Lawrence is much better in his roles of the clients (surprisingly portrayed as very normal people at times, which perhaps there are? We all have our quirks, so as long as they are legal?). I did feel at times that his playing was much less impressive and tended to be unconvincing a little.

As a play, it is great fun but loses out being excellent from its curious over-reliance of prerecorded audio, including several minutes at the start of the play. These pieces are meant to be the thoughts of the character, and while their responses by the actor to these pieces are clever, the excessive use is too much and these thoughts could happily have been vocally performed live by the cast.

However, FEET remains a lovely piece of theatre which thouroughly delights while telling its morally challenging idea and deserves a much longer run than just the two performances it garnered at Camden Fringe.

½

Performance reviewed: Friday 11th August at Etcetera Theatre, Camden Town, LondonFEET was performed during the Camden Fringe at Etcetara Theatre between Thursday 10th and Friday 11th August.
For further details about FEET visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FEETtheplay  or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FeetThePlay

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...

Review of Blood Brothers at Milton Keynes Theatre

Willy Russell's Blood Brothers is a remarkable show that, to any respectable theatre-goer, needs little introduction; however, a little introduction is still in order. First produced in 1983 in Liverpool, Russell had adapted the musical from a high school play he had written, introducing his own music and lyrics into the tale of the twins Mickey and Eddie, and their mother, Mrs Johnstone. From its very first run on stage at the Liverpool Playhouse, the sign was there that Blood Brothers was a very special show, and as a result, it now tours almost constantly in the UK, packing audiences wherever it goes. So, what can be said now that hasn't already been said? Very little, really; however, I must try. This latest production, opening a new tour at Milton Keynes Theatre, continues the format of old and brings the story still vibrantly to life. Also, this new tour still includes someone who is now as much a part of the show as Russell himself. Sean Jones has now played Mickey, th...