The Boot
Hen and Chickens Theatre
London N1
THE CAMDEN Fringe Festival is a binge of new writing and performance — some experimental, some youthful and energetic, most produced on a shoestring.
But it certainly brings a summer buzz to an otherwise sleepy, washed-out London stumbling into Autumn.
At the heart of The Boot, a new 45-minute piece by former journalist Peter Briffa, who’s seen two earlier works play to some acclaim in previous festivals, is an arresting idea.
What happens when a man offers another man money to sleep with his wife?
Not a novel premise, except that this offer is made in an Ikea car park by an average sort of bloke and not by the type with unlimited money, and fetishes we’ve come to expect in such imbroglios.
Of course man two takes up the offer, in that he sleeps with her — she’s a previous lover it turns out — but he doesn’t accept the money. He’s married and does, ironically, have some scruples.
Meanwhile, the poor woman — well, you can imagine what it’s like for her in this blatant male fantasy of woman as man’s plaything. It can’t turn out well and, by the end, I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry.
The playwright has a way with words and the jokes go down well with a packed audience.  If you like this sort of thing, it’s an easy way to pass the time, and Fiona McKinnon’s light and witty performance charms, distracting us from the inaudibility of one of the actors and the barely evident direction.
But at a time when gender stereotypes are more fluid than they have ever been, should the theatre really be stuck in this bygone age of male complacency?