Prepare to giggle, gawp and gasp your way through Local Singles, a comedy that is artful and fun every step of the way. Co-writers Eve Delaney and Christian Hines star as the eponymous star-crossed lovers Eve and Christian in rural Chagford. Despite their first date going ‘cataclysmically right’, Eve left home with wet hair which lead to a terrible case of pneumonia in which she expired for several minutes. Christian never gets her voicemail explaining, thinks Eve has gone cold-turkey on him, and begins to disastrously date other local singles. Soon the play expands to encompass the love-lives of Bear Grylls, a Spanish fruit-bat, the deceptive Rachel, and Christian’s nemesis the Devonshire hunk Greg. When Eve ends up in bed with Greg, is there any way to salvage the possibility of a relationship with Christian?

Director Daniel Emery has made Local Singles occupy a delightful halfway point between a play and a sketch show. Short, witty, eclectic scenes border on the surreal, with settings ranging from the Garden of Eden to a nightclub – with a mother breast-feeding. The writing was a superb mixture of everyday banality and punning linguistic ingenuity. The pacing was also excellent: there was never a moment when the humour fizzled out or the audience became disengaged. Characters were on the whole incredibly well-devised – all of them bizarre, creepy, boring, frustrated singles that could on the rare occasion strike the audience as poignant.

Eve and Christian proved themselves to be versatile comedians, acting with great energy and wry self-consciousness.  Their doublings came fast and furious, but nonetheless were executed with impressive clarity and agility. Physicality – not to mention contact improvisation – was used by both for comic and expressive purposes. My main criticism would be to point out the degree of nervousness which lead to rushed line delivery, meaning that the script’s comic potential was not fully exploited. Additionally, at times some of Eve’s accents were half-hearted and confusing.

The supporting actors who appeared via video projection were also very strong. James Coward played the book-obsessed Peter Jones, Leo Reich played the arachnosexual Bella and John Tothill played the gym rat Daryl Bath: all deserve praise for their outstanding and original contributions.  The way they subtly employed gaze and gesture in the more intimate medium of film was especially commendable.

Local Singles’ technical features were complex and ambitious. Lighting involved projections simulating single ads and facetime videos, as well as snappy blackouts and plain washes. Coloured light could have been experimented with. The sound was fantastic: I was blown away by the sheer variety of moods created by different tracks during scene changes, as well as some sentimental lip-syncing and hilarious recorded stream-of-consciousness. Costumes and props were imaginative and funny. Highlights include an inflatable mood-killing mattress and a skimpy cooking apron. The simplicity of the set which transformed the Corpus Playroom into a messy domestic interior with a worn-out leather sofa and lingerie hanging from a filing cabinet was appropriate, but lacked any flair or nuance to match the play’s constantly shifting of tone or location.

Overall, I had a lovely time. Local Singles is a little gem of student-written comedy fully deserving four and a half stars. It is fresh and exuberant, with tasteful doses of dark humour, meta-theatrics and self-deprecation that make it perfect for a light-hearted but clever night out at the theatre. Also, it was wonderful to note the sense of creative collaboration from which the show emerged. Local Singles is a mocking epic of the dating adventures of Eve and Christian, a crazy catalogue of lonely hearts, and offers tickling and touching reflexions on the rituals of heterosexual dating in our time. Get down to Corpus Playroom to watch their final night!

Local Singles is on at the Corpus Playroom on Wednesday 17th January at 9.30pm