There are interesting ideas buried within Don’t Hate the Player but rather than leaving the theatre challenged or wanting to debate its themes, I simply left confused.
Walking into the Old Fire Station for Don’t Hate the Player, I was intrigued by its premise. A chess prodigy discovering that Tinder uses the same Elo rating system as chess has the potential to say something interesting about dating, algorithms and the way we treat relationships like a game. Unfortunately, by the time the lights came up, my overwhelming feeling was relief that it was over.
The play centres on Alex, played by Georgina Peters, as she navigates dating while becoming increasingly caught up in the idea of ranking and winning. Peters had a difficult job carrying much of the production, but her delivery was often simply too quiet. The Old Fire Station is not a large venue, yet there were moments when I struggled to hear her. Combined with almost constant pacing, it made it difficult to fully engage with Alex or what she was saying.
That movement became a recurring frustration. During a heated confrontation between Alex and Sam, both characters continually moved around the stage when simply allowing them to stand still and deliver the words could have made the exchange considerably more powerful. Louis Fox’s Gabriel offered a sweet and likeable contrast to Sam, although his tendency to bring his hands towards his face whenever he spoke became distracting. Arun Friers, meanwhile, did an excellent job of making Sam thoroughly unlikeable.
The standout for me was Emily Raven-Baker as Maddy. Her performance felt centred and controlled, and she projected clearly throughout. Maddy also became one of the few characters I genuinely sympathised with, particularly as the play moved into more serious territory.
This is where Don’t Hate the Player really lost me. The production raises questions surrounding consent after an encounter between Maddy and Sam, but I was left unsure what it wanted to say about it. Maddy is clearly distressed, yet Alex largely overlooks this, focusing instead on her own problems before later sleeping with Sam herself. While Maddy and Gabriel both challenge Alex’s increasingly self-involved behaviour, these threads never felt satisfactorily resolved. By the end, I still had no real sense of where Alex had ended up or what, if anything, she had learned.
Visually, the production was simple. A screen at the back displayed Alex’s Tinder matches, while a sofa, table and chessboard created the main playing space. Scene changes were quick and efficient, helped by the lack of costume changes. Most of the lighting and sound worked well, although moments where Alex clicked and was immediately picked out by a spotlight, alongside occasional use of the house lights, felt overly literal.
There are interesting ideas buried within Don’t Hate the Player, and Raven-Baker in particular gave a strong performance, but they never came together for me. Rather than leaving the theatre challenged or wanting to debate its themes, I simply left confused.