A charming, wholesome and funny exploration of dating in your 60-70s and how our past casts shadows on our future
Ruby (Nesba Crenshaw) and Roger (Alan Booty) are on their first date on a park bench overlooking Lewisham after matching on an online dating site. The play follows the couple on a series of dates. They rally through an eclectic mix of conversation from their dating experiences, relationship histories to a tongue-and-cheek chat about “what women want’’ and “mansplaining”. As they get to know each other, conversations turn serious; from family tensions, struggles of caring for their parents, to gender dynamics in age gap relationships.
The plot twists and turns push us through this concise narrative until Ruby and Roger are confronted with their ultimate barrier to the relationship’s durability. Actions from Roger’s past are revealed and things reach a head when she confronts him. Booty delicately explores various perspectives and briefly touches on how such events from decades ago still affect individuals and communities today.
Throughout the play the idea of your past haunting your present and dictating your future reoccurs. The Dating Game askes can you ever escape this and live for the now? Can Ruby and Roger move past this? Can some mistakes be forgiven if not forgotten?
Booty keeps good pacing throughout, balancing short and revealing vignettes on the two protagonists with the longer duologues of their dates. The script is littered with humour and nostalgic musical references. Crenshaw and Booty expertly foster an understated chemistry and both actors delightfully fill the space of this black box theatre with their excellent vocal skills.
With the nature of the script being dialogue heavy and fairly sedentary, mainly park bench and dinner table conversations, the challenge posed would be straying into the realms of exposition and over explanation. Two moments in particular stood out as excellent examples of showing-not-telling: Ruby’s solo vignette in Scene 2 where she directly addresses her mother reflecting on their first date. It was effectively staged with Crenshaw directly addressing the audience in place of her mother, lit by a single fixture with a well-chosen gobo casting the shape of a doorway onstage, as if Ruby was lit by the glow from her mother’s room as she stood in a dark hallway. The second moment was their first at-home-date where Ruby makes a move on Roger as the flirtation builds. Clever and funny, it was staged to perfectly encapsulate the natural and charming awkwardness of first times in new relationships with the sexual references tastefully subtle but very much there! Moments that may have strayed into exposition were few and far between but perhaps included Roger’s scene on the phone to his father where their relationship felt a little over explained, but equally a good technique to plant seeds for the audience outside of the characters onstage discourse.
Staging was simple but effective and well thought through with set and props being set either naturally within the scene itself or in smooth transitions during a dimly-lit transition state.
In the programme, Booty states his goals for this production, in the form of three questions. I find the answer all three to indeed be yes. At some point in the show, The Dating Game provides a bit of humour to each and every audience member (1), there’s a bit of something for everyone, a range of ideas are presented (2) upon which I certainly had thoughts and opinions which would sufficiently see me through a good chat on the subjects in the pub afterwards (3).
The Dating Game has concluded its run at the SEFest 2026.
The mix of humor, relationship dynamics, and deeper conversations makes *The Dating Game* sound like an engaging play. I like how the production uses simple settings and dialogue to explore its characters, much like how https://c555.pk/ brings different game elements together in an interactive experience.