The Bad Daters

Georgina McKevitt and Brian Gallagher in The Bad Daters. Image by Al Craig.

****

Two lost souls in search of companionship opt for online dating. Liam, a gormless widower trying to do better meets Wendy, a law onto herself forced on a date by her sister. First impressions suggest opposites repel. Liam, so laid back as to be horizontal, is the diametric opposite to Wendy, whose unblinking laser stare would terrify the most vicious Mother Superior. Speaking without filters, displaying OCD and Tourette tendencies, Wendy compulsively sanitises her hands but can’t sanitise her curse loving tongue. No bookie would take bets on them surviving a date, let alone a second one, these broken and cracked souls. Yet in Derek Murphy’s darling rom com, The Bad Daters, it’s through the cracks that the light pours in. Shining gloriously in a bewitchingly uplifting production.

Like Harold and Maude, or Beeny and Joon, Murphy’s oddball couple offer a character study in loneliness and connection. Spread over a series of interconnected, cinematic scenes, their relationship blossoms towards a turning point as Liam stays the course and Wendy feels less threatened. Yet whilst dialogue sparkles with incisive humour, too much is left unsaid, falling through the spaces between the scenes. The result less a story so much as a character arc that skates over depth, leaving the audience to fill in too many blanks. Given you’re wildly in love with all you see and hear, it can feel like being short changed. Still, The Bad Daters generates more laughter and heart in forty five minutes than most show of a similar ilk could hope to muster.

Brian Gallagher and Georgina McKevitt in The Bad Daters. Image by Al Craig.

Throughout, Murphy’s simple staging and direction ensures conversations are allowed to breathe. Brian Gallagher delighting as the lovelorn Liam ready to do anything except the one thing Wendy wants. Comedian Gallagher knowing his role is to play straight man to a superlative Georgina McKevitt as Wendy. Like the Extraordinary Attorney Woo, McKevitt’s character makes the awkward Wendy utterly adorable with a wonderfully affecting performance. The whole a delight from start to finish. Murphy's The Bad Dater’s one of the most charming, feel good, utterly irresistible productions you’ll see this year.

The Bad Daters by Derek Murphy, presented by Bewley’s Café Theatre and Speckintime, runs at Bewley’s Café Theatre until February 22.

For more information visit Bewley’s Café Theatre