Marcus Ryan’s new show Love me Tinder 2 had the Saturday night crowd laughing uproariously for duration of the performance. Born in Wonthaggi, Ryan has been travelling for the last ​12 years around the globe, particularly the UK and the US, delighting audiences with his charisma and cheeky audience interactions.
Ryan opens his show dressed as his own imaginary “manager”: a goofy character who immediately softens the heart of his audience. Any comedian who will look that silly to elicit laughter has to be a good sort. But when he struggles out from the curtain five-minutes later in his stand-up comedian persona, Ryan reveals the confidence and easy charm of a seasoned performer.
He opens with hilarious sarcastic banter about the none too salubrious venue he has been allotted by the comedy festival. Misleadingly called the “Downstairs lounge”, the reality of where we all find ourselves squashed together is a stiflingly hot and pokey basement space. With the charm of a surgical waiting room and an extraordinarily low roof, the ceiling panels nearly brush the top of Ryan’s head as he stands on the stage. He wrings every drop of humour out of his predicament with a infectious self-deprecating humour that wins the heart of the audience.
As the title of his show pertains, for most of the rest of his show Ryan plunges into the contemporary phenomenon of online dating. Like a sociologist eager for new data, Ryan asks his audience to share their experiences and teases out information as well as sharing his own research, illustrated by slides that he shows throughout the show. He has uncovered some most unusual dating apps.
‘Ok be honest, how many people here have tried online dating?’ From giggling and laughing the audience suddenly fell entirely silent. ‘Ok,’ he continued, ‘we are going to have to try this another way’. Eventually the audience is asked to close their eyes and clap if they have tried online dating. Only two clap. A big smile slowly creeps over Ryan’s face and his eyes twinkle as he knows he has got a battle on his hands to open this audience up to the truth of their digital dabblings. Banter ensues. Ryan plays on the current attitude of shame and secrecy that surrounds the online dating scene and tickles his audience with his reflections. There is a veneer of tension that the audience is eager to have him burst, and he obliges them with gentle mocking humour and self-parody.
By the end of the show Ryan reflects on how online dating is perhaps ‘the worst single thing that ever happened to society’. He poses that it has created a culture where people are now less likely to approach each other in person and that the state of loneliness is even more prevalent with the advent of dehumanised databanks full of people to swipe.
The audience laughed a lot during the show. Filing out I felt that there was more eye contact and smiling going on in the foyer than before the show, his message to encourage people to look up from their phones and say hello had perhaps been heard.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5​
Love me Tinder 2: The Untold Stories
Marcus Ryan
The Downstairs Lounge
6.30pm Tues-Sun
Melbourne Town Hall
7.15pm Monday
30 March – 19 April 2015​
