Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Canadian comic J Murphy describes A Tinderella Story: Swipe, Wince, Repeat as a ‘comedic TED talk’, and truth be told, it felt more like a talk than a comedy. 

Murphy navigates the familiar world of online dating as a pansexual, sharing personal anecdotes about their strange dates. They perform a skit about a night with a money launderer and their encounter with someone who wanted to ‘blow their pants off with steak’, both met with awkward pauses and delayed laughs. 

Murphy jumps back and forth erratically between Tinder tales, dating advice, and obvious jokes that could be seen a mile away. A gag about cooking pans and pansexuality was met with groans, and perhaps Murphy underestimated the intelligence of the audience, with the lack of nuance in their jokes making for a flat show.

The biggest laugh was not given to Murphy, but instead to an audience member relaying their own Tinder story: an outrageous tale of a date whose card declined, only to follow it up with a placatory statement of his upcoming million-dollar inheritance.

Murphy begins to pick up the pace at the halfway mark, talking about common dating tropes to bring up the mood - though the observations were not always fresh: from lying about your age to calling yourself an ‘entrepreneur’ when simply unemployed. 

Their online dating anecdotes culminated in an original song that had the audience laughing wryly. The song ‘I don’t live with my parents, my parents live with me’ is certainly relatable for anyone who exists in the social media and dating world. 

Despite being called Tinderella, the show lacked its own Cinderella moment, Murphy’s comedy hinging on still being single at 35. 

In a strange reenactment of Instagram posts, Murphy compared their dating life to that of their high school peers, mocking their reels of marriage and children. But in an attempt to expose the artificial nature of social media, Murphy instead revealed their own bitterness. 

The critique of social media and dating offered nothing new, and while the original song provided an entertaining interlude, the remainder of the show was too rudimentary to shine.
 

Review date: 6 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Kashmini Shah
Reviewed at: Just the Tonic at The Grassmarket Centre