Brighton Fringe review by Steve Bennett

In the words of the great philosopher-poet Tyler: ‘Where have all the good men gone? And where are all the Gods?’

This is Nicole Harvey’s rather more lengthy posing of the same question. A woman who has just turned 40 bemoaning her enforced singledom, despite clearly having so much going for her.

The tone of Delicious and Dateless is very much of a first-person article in one of the more upmarket women’s magazines, as she ponders what a girl’s got to do these days to get an attractive, caring, intelligent partner. Have all the best men of her age really disappeared from the shelf?

She’s gorgeous, but says men never make the first approach. Speed-dating, Latin dancing classes, clubbing – she’s tried them all, but nothing seems to work. The answer is probably a serious dating website like match.com or eharmony, but she dismisses this suggestion out of hand, perhaps for fear it could skewer her show.

Delicious And Dateless is a catalogue of her experiences, but Harvey is very much an actor more than a comedian, and her script, though engaging and lively, rarely raises more than a wry smile of recognition. You can add intelligence to her list of attributes,too, as she astutely raises some pertinent issues, pondering whether loneliness is the last taboo, or wondering what the future holds for chivalrous masculinity torn between an online world of instant, shallow, swipe-right interaction, and a real world of politically-correct pitfalls.

But in saying this explicitly, she’s missed the chance to dance around the issues and let the audience figure it out for themselves. Plus for a comedy it’s short on punchlines. She has a nice turn of phrase, but rarely thinks to add jokes – again suggesting this is closer to first-person journalism than stand-up.

She could learn a lot by comparing her ‘dating a toyboy’ bit with American comic Jen Kirkman’s routine on a similar subject, for example, to see how to draw out funnies from details, which Harvey overlooks for a more straightforward telling. And some of the gags she does consciously add can feel leaden. Does calling Twitter ‘Twatter’ even count as a joke six years after the notoriously hilarious David Cameron, of all people made basically the same gag in an interview?

This show is classily put together and Harvey’s a charismatic, engaging teller of her own stories; but the hour is not funny enough for stand-up, weighty enough for theatre nor raucous enough to be a slice of ‘girls night out’ fun leaving it, ironically enough, in a no man’s land of entertainment.

Review date: 6 May 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Hove Sweet Dukebox