Knowing that each account was backed up by true life gave them an extra sting of humour and poignancy.
The show opens with a set of statistics explaining the reality of today’s dating. These are then studded throughout the story, effectively contextualising the piece and reinforcing its inspiration from reality. It was then divided into snappy and intensely uncomfortable speed dating scenes, standalone anecdotes detailing stories of bad decisions and mortifying parties, and lengthier segments in which the characters worked comically through their love lives, or lack thereof.
Writers Christine Kempell and Hilary Handel offer a script that is laden with hilarious observations, including a particularly relatable passage outlining the suffocating politics of loading the dishwasher, which was wonderfully delivered by Sophie Dearlove. Another success came with the smaller, quieter stories that briefly refreshed the narrative and injected a little dash of much needed sweetness into the show- the rest of the characters were seemingly falling out of love with love itself. Knowing that each account was backed up by true life gave them an extra sting of humour and poignancy.
From a practical point of view, the production could have benefitted from tighter execution; the statistics and character dating profiles on display distracted somewhat from the action on stage, and could perhaps have been used as transitions between scenes, instead of as part of the scenes themselves. The main downside to this production was that there were countless characters for the very entertaining cast of four to rattle through. While every story was packed with humour, despite the small costume changes and accents, it was a little difficult to keep up with who was who. However, these proved to be small blemishes on an otherwise great performance that had the audience laughing right from the start.
