[2015042] Marcus Ryan – Love Me Tinder
Marcus Ryan @ Producers Cranny
8:45pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015
Although this show wasn’t initially on my Short(ha!)list, friends had talked up Marcus Ryan’s performance to the point where I thought I should check him out.
You know what? My “instincts” are a better judge of a show than my “friends”.
Things were promising early: Ryan starts the show in the character of his own manager, and there’s a few awkward, self-effacing laughs to be had at his expense. But when Ryan himself takes to the stage… well, that’s when things went downhill.
I’m guessing the first fifteen minutes of the show were self-aggrandising career highlights – “I’ve performed in a squillion countries, I’ve been a professional comic for ten years” – which made the hackneyed “welcome to the show / isn’t my venue shit” padding seem a little whiny. I managed to glean a couple of half-smiles from Ryan’s early online dating material, but the Tinder-related content (which only appeared in the back half of the show) was predictable, at best. In fact, the only “material” that managed to rise above the “meh” rating came as a result of the couples in the audience that had met via online dating (including one platonic couple)… their quips eclipsed anything Ryan himself had penned.
When I read my tweet about this show, I smiled in recollection… I really enjoyed writing that at the time. But now, nine months later, thinking about Love Me Tinder actually makes me a little bit angry. I found it absolutely banal and a waste of my time… but maybe that was just me, or this night, or this audience, or a confluence of events that conspired to create a crappy event. I’m sure Marcus Ryan is a nice guy, but I really did not enjoy this chunk of my life.
(42) Marcus Ryan – Love Me Tinder: I don't want to be critical, but… Swipe Left. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 18, 2015