- Dark Horse Theatre
Rob and Jenny, after secretly crushing on each other for years, are finally going on their first date at the finest restaurant in town. What could possibly go wrong? Everything, apparently! Complications arise with an arrogant retiring waiter, a fastidious head cook, unexpected encounters with old flames, some surprisingly personal debauchery and a visit from a notorious food critic. And what’s up with that mysterious Ambrose guy? You’ll have to see this play to find out the hilarious answers. This unhinged comedy of errors comes to you from the creators of past Fringe favourites Farrago, The Beginner’s Guide to Suicide and last year’s megahit The Social. Table for two, anybody?
Not what I expected. Ambrose was the best part of the show. Great acting and I liked his storyline.
Went to see Rob and Jenny’s First Date yesterday based on the summary, but it was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be a sweet comedy of errors where two young people had some mishaps that kept them from being able to fully see out/enjoy their date. Though there was a sexual content warning in the “Warnings” notice for the show, i thought it would be mild/tasteful references, why I thought this i guess was based on my interpretation of the summary. It was not. If you’re going to see this show, be prepared for more explicit descriptions and for rather tasteless eye-boggling by the main (male) characters of Jenny’s recountings. This show is definitely aimed at a more mature audience in terms of both age (45+) and storylines. The acting was stiff in a lot of circumstances, by a lot of the characters, particularly by the “manager” character Simon, who I found odd, strange, and unbelievable as a character playing the manager of a restaurant– he doesn’t seem to care at all about his reputation or his restaurant’s and treats both his guests and his staff poorly. This would make sense if he was playing Diego, the spanish server, one of a few of the characters who seemed to be unfairly stereotyped, considering he was leaving his job, but in this role as remaining manager, it just didn’t make any sense. Despite all this, the show had a fairly large turnout. As expressed earlier, I did notice most of the audience was older (45+), and that they seemed to laugh at most of the “jokes”. If there was a saving grace to this play, it was Ambrose, the old man who never gets served his dinner. His acting was solid, comedic-timing on time, and wit and wisdom enrolled in humbleness.
This was a fun play. Very funny with no dull moments, great character development, and slightly raunchy. I enjoyed seeing all the Fluevogs on stage too! 🙂
I really enjoyed this show a whole bunch, the audience was laughing throughout most of the play. The characters were very unique and well fleshed out, and there was a good amount of physical comedy from some of the actors. I recommend seeing this play.
This actually felt like two separate plays that had been stitched together. There was the new love meets old love dynamic between the titular Rob & Jenny and the heart-warming character of Ambrose, and then there was the slapstick comedy of the horny service-worker’s fantasy in Diego’s last day before retirement. Both stories certainly have their moments – there were tonnes of both laughs and awwws from the massive audience – but I am left wondering if both halves could have been better if they weren’t competing with each other. However, while I would gladly have focused more on the romantic story, at least the distractions were entertaining!