@ Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, until Sat 29 Feb 2015 (and touring)
The premise doesn’t bode well; a relationship comedy set in the fraught modern world of social media sounds like the kind of thing a tired TV exec would programme in an attempt to appear ‘on trend’. In fact, Sleeping Warrior Theatre Company‘s Love 2.0 reveals itself to be an endearing little show which tackles its unpromising and potentially nauseating subject matter with a fair degree of flair and accomplishment.
Suzie with a ‘Z’ (Lucy Goldie) and Gary (Samuel Keefe) are a pair of cyber-daters – Gary, a Wilde-quoting, black polo-neck wearing try-hard, Suzie, a 21st Century ingenue with a long list of dating ‘must-haves’ and a penchant for Simply Red. They’re terminally ill-suited. They meet through a mutual Facebook acquaintance and as online tension builds over a series of likes, pokes and LOLs, they each reveal their hopes and fears to the audience, before the coffee-shop meeting that defines their future.
Ingenious use of props effectively de-digitises the online world for the stage, smart work by director Andy McGregor and designer Kirsty McCabe. A can-and-string telephone stands in for a Skype chat, post-it notes for text messages, a hotel reception bell for message notifications. Actual walls take the place of their facebook equivalent, and photos and posts are shuffled about upon them in the manner of Bruce Forsythe’s Play Your Cards Right. Laughs are hearty and frequent, even if some of Gary’s habits are a little too creepy for comfort.
Both characters are run-of-the-mill enough to be familiar, but idiosyncratic enough to be believable, with Keefe marginally more adroit at the role (acting from personal experience maybe?). Somehow, for its seventy minutes, the whole play wanders a minefield of cliche and emerges unscathed. It will age quickly, obviously, if it hasn’t already – does anyone actually poke each other any more? – but catch it now and it makes for great entertainment. Just hope that you haven’t got any Facebook friends like this pair’s Big Dave.