Review: THE DATING GAME, Jack Studio Theatre
Two oldies venture into the world of online dating, as the past rears up into the present
I’ll confess to a Guilty Pleasure. Come Saturday morning, the first thing I look at on opening up the laptop, is the latest column in The Guardian’s Blind Date series. I wince when its lucky pair are not a beaming duo of bright young things, but a late-middle aged couple, because I kinda know what’s coming. Despite the (to me at least) obvious inference that two 60-something Guardian readers, both of whom chose to apply for the gig, enhancing compatibility still further, would hit it off, they seldom do. All this "...meet as a friend" is bollocks and the world seems a little lonelier a result.
So is (and I speak as a 60-something Guardian reader) the game of dating not worth the candle, the conclusion reached so often by the pair wined and dined on The G’s dime? Alan Booty’s new play, The Dating Game, goes part of the way to explaining why that may well be the case, even if it starts promisingly.
Roger - there’s an irony in the name that we discover a little later - is all mansplaining bluster on his first date with Ruby, quoting Goethe and pop songs with equal facility. This sort of thing does happen - and I made a mental note not to do it. Well, strictly speaking, not to do it again. Roger is clearly over-compensating for something and it doesn’t take us too long to guess what.
Ruby is a little shy, almost teenage-like in her reticence, as she finds her feet on the IRL side of the dating apps. But she’s keen enough and, once she starts to trust Roger, she’s suddenly very keen indeed. Then...
Alan Booty is very good on the nervous tics a man like Roger possesses - the eyes on the ground as soon as the comfort zone is threatened, the unease when Ruby comes into his personal space, the sadness and rage as self-sabotage, past and present, engulfs him. Nesba Crenshaw relies on similar subtlety to convey her transition, never quite a shrinking violet, but no femme fatale either when she seizes her moment with forthright desire. Both are rounded, credible characters or, as the young people say, relatable. The actors understand that men and women like this are not given to grand gestures and that the space rewards nuance in performance.
At 65 minutes, the play might work better if a little tighter, reining in a little of the exposition of its second half. Almost everyone will ‘get it’ swiftly, clocking a hot button issue's foreshadowing early on and almost everyone will see the play ending as it does, like a reversed Uncle Vanya. There’s room for more laughs too, probably at the expense of Roger's groan-inducing self-deprecation, a card played once or twice too often.
That said, it’s unusual to see a couple like this on stage and to catch a vibe that reminded me of Carla Lane’s much underrated sitcom, Butterflies, updated in 2026 for a more online, more judgemental age. And that’s not a bad strapline for a show that I hope finds stages for runs in the future.
The Dating Game is part of SE Fest 2026, running until 12 September
Photo image: Pogo Theatre
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