Breezy conversational chatter, dry one-liners and sweeping generalisations about the sexes reign in Keelan Kember’s new dating comedy. Having transferred from the King’s Head theatre, the highest stakes here concern whether or not to get breakfast the morning after.
Two young men, who give little evidence of being able to keep their kitchen as clean as Ellie Wintour’s sleek set suggests, attempt to teach each other how to get the girl. One is a player. The other is only ever known monogamy. Cue lots of mock shock about the supposed rules of modern dating. In the era of Andrew Tate, it’s all charmingly innocent, the men’s confusion about women coming purely from boyish eagerness.
Wintour gives us millennial green walls and aubergine cabinets in this swanky kitchen; accountant Honey (Kedar Williams-Stirling, fromSex Education) is only 30 but is clearly doing extremely well for himself. Under Monica Cox’s direction, he carries himself with a knowing swagger, swanning through one night stands and booty calls without a flutter of self-doubt. Then in bumbles Kember’s character Cashel, a freshly heartbroken obsessive overthinker who talks in self-deprecating quips and sarcastic comments. Honey tries to guide Cashel in his newly single life – enter looking-for-something-casual Eloise (Nell Tiger Free), while Honey deals with the uncomfortable new sensation of falling for lone-wolf Maya (Adeyinka Akinrinade).
The cast are all naturally funny performers, but the show’s humour seems set on its tracks from the moment it starts, missing a sense of the raw liveness that could drive it off the rails. Despite the modern setting, the script feels oddly timeless; the mess of dating apps doesn’t make an appearance. The whole event has a distanced slickness to it, not helped by the mics that sometimes make it feel like we’re listening through headphones.
There’s a much tighter play in here, one that takes bigger risks in its staging and physical comedy, and there’s a lot of exposition for very little plot, with the audience working out the end result long before the characters do. But with a wry script, fun cast and laidback attitude, Thanks for Having Me is the theatrical equivalent of a comforting sitcom you turn on when you don’t want to think too hard about what to watch.
AtRiverside Studios, London, until 26 April