Strategic Love Play – Soho Theatre
Two singletons walk into a bar, ready for (at least) a polite two drinks’ worth of getting-to-know-you chatter with a person they’ve never met outside the confines of their phone screen. What could go wrong?
The dating app-induced first date is a scene many of us are all too familiar with, and it sets up the premise of Miriam Battye’s Strategic Love Play, currently playing at Soho Theatre until 15th June.
We join the two characters — simply referred to as Woman (Letty Thomas) and Man (Archie Backhouse) — at their first meeting, and it’s abundantly clear from the get-go that they’re not on the same wavelength. While Man seems content exchanging bumbling pleasantries that avoid any risk of a genuinely enlightening conversation, Woman is bitingly honest and desperate to dig deeper...