"Someone Else's Shoes"

Last night, I went to see “Someone Else’s Shoes” at The Soho Theatre with Dave, Paul and Tom. The Soho Theatre is always a treat – it feels like a proper experience to go there, much more so than the faceless and over-priced tat-fests in Theatreland.

Set in a society where everything can be bought and sold – and even creativity and love are commodities – “Someone Else’s Shoes” asks how far capitalism can go and if there’s anything that can’t be owned.

The Amedeo brothers’ business, Mercury Shoes (basically, Nike), has been sold to a multi-national corporation. And Adam Amedeo has gone to Canada to become an art collector, where he finds Nadine, an artist whose work he buys – but, when he starts shagging her, is he really buying her soul? Meanwhile, Nadine’s ex-boyfriend Jed (sexy Jonjo O’Neill) is working his way up Mercury’s shop floor, until militant left-wing activist Mary embroils him in her terrorist mission to bring Mercury (and capitalism) crashing down, by replacing the soles of the shoes with bombs. It’s all very, erm, subtle.

Relentlessly performed in an hour and 40 minutes solid, the five cast members were all impressive, especially Jonjo O’Neill. It was something of a flaw that the character of Nadine was hugely unpleasant, meaning you didn’t care what happened to her or her precious art, but the result of that was it made you root for Jed even more.

Make time to go to the Soho Theatre – decent fringe theatre in the heart of the West End… and it’s cheap, too!