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Review: How to Date a Feminist

How to write a rom-com that isn't brimful of cliché?

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How to write a rom-com that isn't brimful of cliché? Samantha Ellis goes about adding to this most enduring of genres by subverting every assumption implied by the title of her comedy.
The feminist here is not a woman, but a baker called Steve who is the son of a former Greenham Common CND protestor. It is Jewish journalist Kate who is the more reactionary of the couple, her romantic type being more alpha-male Heathcliff than the constantly considerate beta-male Steve.

This premise alone would be a strong enough to pitch to a film studio, and perhaps one day it will. But with two actors playing a multiplicity of characters including Steve's Scottish mum, and Kate's Israeli dad; Kate's predatory boss and Steve's former girlfriend, any film version will have to unpick the pleasingly inherent theatricality of Ellis's writing and Matthew Lloyd's production.

Costumes fly during the quick changes which Sarah Daykin executed with a couple of knowing looks to the audience. Both Daykin and the excellent Tom Berish could have more fun with this.

Just occasionally, the evening leans a little too much on rom-com tropes: the ketchup spotted by Steve on Kate's cheek during their first date prompts an oddly coy response from Kate, and Steve's response to a wedding-day crisis feels somewhat manufactured.

But there is genuine wit to much of the dialogue and Ellis frames the plot in a time-shifting narrative that keeps the audience on its toes. They leave with more than one question to consider; not just how to date a feminist, but can a true feminist ever be a man?

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