Flat feet

Daniel Nelson

Bound Feet Blues: A Life Told in Shoes is a short

Bound Feet Blues

Image by Tristan Bates Theatre

She certainly has a story to tell, or rather two stories: her own repression, in order not to cause problems for herself or her family, her Oxford education, her China doll persona in fashion shoes and curve-clinging cheongsam, her qualification as a lawyer, her sexual re-awakening during in a trip to Australia, her love for the woman who was to become her life-long partner.

This personal memoir is interwoven with the family tale of her great-grandmother’s footbinding and later migration to Malaysia, step by excruciating step.

The two stories are bound as tightly as her ancestor’s feet and her descriptions of her moves from trainers to high-heels to hiking boots are deftly encapsulated in the subtitle, A Life Told in Shoes – and underlined by her liberated on-stage shoelessness.

The writing is concise and clear, and along the way, without ever being hectoring or doctrinaire, she makes some telling points – at the similarity between foot-binding and stiletto heels, for example, or the casual mindlessness of anti-gay prejudice.

I totally agree and support everything Yang-May Ooi says, but was not emotionally engaged. She lacks a stage presence, with every gesture feeling choreographed rather than spontaneous, and the closet-leaving content, in these days of tell-all outpourings, is evidently sincere but not challengingly new. It’s shoe-business, not show business.

·         Bound Feet Blues: A Life Told In Shoes is at the Tristan Bates Theatre, 1A Tower St, Covent Garden, WC2, until 12 December. Info:  7240 6283/  www.tristanbatestheatre.co.uk/ www.boundfeetblues.co.uk

+ The Book 'Bound Feet Blues' by Yang-May Ooi, is published by Urbane Publications, £16.99