No sooner than Cilla is cold in her grave, Blind Date is back with a vengeanc. First a nude version on Channel 4 and now a variation for the stage in which, thankfully, the clothes stay on.
As the title suggests, the show is about fidelity or, at least the very start of it, with genial host Rob Drummond pulling volunteers out of the audience, whittling them down to two and taking them to a set that looks very much like a posh dentist’s waiting and setting them off on on a very awkward and very public first date.
At this performance, six volunteers were reduced to five with the quick departue of the solitary gay guy and, eventually, 18-year-old Jordan from New York and 28-year-old local girl Kim were chosen. Was it a coincidence that they were the most “photogenic” of the six? Both were also actors, but the percentage chances of that happening at the Festival are pretty high.
Drummond, also the writer, throws in tit-bits of scientific data about the heart and the brain from the likes of Darwin and several amusing aphorisms, but the show works primarily due to his quick-witted ability to keep it afloat when the audience is not helping him. No-one knows if Jordan and Kim will live happily ever after or even make it to a second date, but they contributed to a mildly amusing 80 minutes anyway
Performance date: 7 August 2016
The Beast's Pen 