The trials and tribulations of online dating are a very present concern in art, and they play a small role in Declan Greene's Max Afford Playwrights Award-winning Eight Gigabytes Of Hardcore Pornography, a two-hander handled at Griffin by Steve Rodgers and Andrea Gibbs under Lee Lewis' direction.
But more than the elusive perfect match, this play looks at the contemporary conditioning of individuals that prevents online dating – rife vanity, a penchant for publicised self-loathing.
Marg Horwell's set – lilac shag carpet as far as the eye can see, and some sparingly used and effective lighting by Matthew Marshall – suggest, appropriately, the televised phone sex hotlines that infiltrate free-to-air in the wee hours.
These are self-serving characters – and while they are interesting enough to generate 90 minutes of what feels like a live reading of a LiveJournal – they are too effectively selfish and inward-gazing for much else to happen. The two storylines drunkenly brush hands and lazily flirt, but are ultimately buried under the barrage of brand names and the crippling inability to engage. It's about all they have in common really.
Eight Gigabytes Of Hardcore Pornography is uncomfortable – that seems at least part of the point – but mostly it's an interesting medium in which to ask whether it's okay to be plain while everyone scrambles to assemble and present their own narrative.
SBW Stables to 14 Jun
