Thanks For Having Me (Riverside Studios, London)
Verdict: It was my pleasure
(FOUR STARS)
Following a couple of sell-out runs in small theatres, Keelan Kember’s fast, funny dating drama looks a tad dwarfed in the barnlike Riverside Studios, as if it’s happening on the telly over there.
Which is actually where, sharply trimmed, this Men Behaving Badly-meets-Friends sitcom would work even more of a treat.
Following a couple of sell-out runs in small theatres, Keelan Kember’s fast, funny dating drama Thanks For Having Me looks a tad dwarfed in the barnlike Riverside Studio
Talented Kember is hilarious as Cashel, almost 30, a posh, neurotic, hypochondriac (allergic to almost everything), egomaniac romantic
Talented Kember is hilarious as Cashel, almost 30, a posh, neurotic, hypochondriac (allergic to almost everything), egomaniac romantic.
Dumped by his girlfriend of forever, he is tutored in the ways of dating by his super-chilled, determinedly singleton best-mate, Honey, played by Sex Education’s Kedar Williams-Stirling.
The rules of the game are simple: sound interesting (musician better than accountant), talk holidays, get her back to your place, insist there’s no sex on a first date to set a challenge, play Amy Winehouse to prove you’re a sensitive soul.
Enjoy, then move swiftly on to the next one.
Piece of cake.
As Cashel discovers when Honey’s current squeeze, Maya (Adeyinka Akinrinade) introduces him to her up-for-it therapist friend, Eloise (Game of Thrones’ Nell Tiger Free).
Trouble is, Cashel falls instantly in love with the leggy blonde.
He wants an intense, exclusive, old-fashioned relationship — hopefully forever — with said cake.
As Cashel discovers when Honey’s current squeeze, Maya, who is played by Adeyinka Akinrinade, introduces him to her up-for-it therapist friend, Eloise (Game of Thrones’ Nell Tiger Free)
But footloose, fancy-free Eloise wants to keep things casual: no kisses goodbye, no breakfast, just wham, bam, thanks for having me and see you around. In other words, she doesn’t want to be seen as a prize.
She wants to be as free as a man.
Needless to say, the lads switch emotional positions, and one thread of a romcom becomes a love story.
The men are considerably better-written and more amusing than the sketchily drawn women, but Kember skilfully charts that tricky emotional passage from no-strings to tentative connection to provisional attachment to tying the knot.
Light, bright date-night fun.
Until April 26.
