F*CK TINDER: A LOVESTORY - VAN FRINGE 2018

F**k Tinder is a one-man monologue-type show by David Rodwin, playing at Performance Works as part of the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival. It contains a lot of sexual content, as you may expect from the title. So be warned about that.
 
This show has the feel of a friend telling you nearly unbelievable stories over a beer. The venue contributes to this feeling of just hanging around and having some laughs, sharing some heartfelt moments, and being a part of some interesting insights about the human condition.
 
Rodwin is a charismatic and personable storyteller and it’s really enjoyable to be a part of his world. There are plenty of laughs here and it’s a thrilling ride.
 
However, there is too much to this show for the time allotted, and really, too much for one show. The performance I went to was over the already 75 minute show time, by 7 minutes. Some of this show is a hilarious, zany montage of sex-capades in San Fransisco, some of it is a heartfelt search for love. Those stories could be separated into two separate shows, or distilled down into one tighter performance, but there is too much here, and as a result, it sags in the middle as the story loses its purpose…..but, it finds it again….in the epilogue. Therefore, I really recommend everyone stays for the epilogue, because that’s where the point of this story really comes into fruition.
 
Overall, it’s a fun ride, and Rodwin is a performer and writer to watch in future.

F**k Tinder by David Rodwin is at Performance Works on Granville Island 6 - 16 September as part of the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival.

~ reviewed by Vanessa Marshall

Click "read more" for the full video transcription.

Welcome Theatre Addicts. My name is Vanessa Marshall and I'll be reviewing Fuck Tinder tonight by David Rodwin at Performance Works behind me as part of the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival. I'm looking forward to the show because it sounds like a really fun, zany tale, you know, that your friend is telling you. I also ... I'm a little bit too old-fashioned for dating apps, but I do have like a voyeuristic curiosity about how they work and what people do, so I'm looking forward to the show and hoping that it is great. So we'll see you afterwards.

I just saw Fuck Tinder by David Rodwin at Performance Works as part of the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival. What did I think of the show? It is overall a really great, lovely, funny show. It's not dark. It obviously has sexual content in it, quite a lot of sexual content in it. Some of it's exotic sexual content in it you might say, but it's overall very positive. It's very sex positive. It's very feminist positive. It's a funny one-man show.

I don't usually go to one-man shows or like one-man shows, but like I said in my intro, I sort of got the vibe that it was sort of like a friend telling a funny story, and it is very much that. So if you're not into, you know, one-man performances where they play like 12 different characters, you don't need to worry about that in this case. This is pretty much straight up, like a friend telling you crazy stories about their life, which I find always enjoyable.

Obviously everything is sparse in terms of, you know, lighting and music and costumes and all that sort of stuff, but they actually do a good job in sort of giving you different moods and giving you different locations. You always know where you are. You're always able to follow the plot. I would say that I think he was maybe a bit nervous. This was the first show, and so maybe he was a little bit nervous in the first third.

Their jokes are really well written, but some of the delivery the timing wasn't quite right. He was going a little bit to the left. So my hope is that in later performances the timing will work out a little bit better in terms of him relaxing, because I think there is some really great material there.

The show does go on longer than it probably should. That's him behind us, quite excitedly. But it's a little bit long. It's a little bit ... It drags a little bit in the middle. The pacing in terms of ... It's quite funny at the beginning and then it kind of gets into this less funny middle, and then the last third is a great mixed bag of things that are sort of crazy and zany and funny and heartfelt and touching and beautiful, and so I think that would be sort of my biggest critique, is just that it's a little bit long.

The conclusion comes in the epilogue, so if you really have time do stay for the epilogue, because the epilogue is really the true conclusion to the story in my view, so I think that if you want to really know where does it go, what happens, what is the point of all of this, you do need to stay for the epilogue.

So I think it's a great start from an excellent writer and a lovely performer. He's got great charisma. He's got great personality. He's extremely charming and likeable and I really adored watching him and listening to his story. It was really fun. It was really ... You know, you definitely cared. I felt a definite empathy for what he was going through.

There's some social commentary about Trump and what it's like to live in LA and San Francisco, and I enjoyed all of that from sort of a cultural kind of perspective. I would say that overall it's a really good show. It's definitely more enjoyable than most one-man shows that I have seen in my life. It is a little long. It's 70-75 minutes, so be prepared. But it is over an hour.

I think what I would suggest maybe for David, if you're listening, is maybe take a page out of T. J. Dawes book and break these really interesting, really fascinating, enjoyable, hilarious stories and break them into different shows, because there's a lot there, a little bit too much there for one show in my view. But overall it was a great experience, really positive, really enjoyable, really heartfelt, and I enjoyed it a great deal.
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My name is Vanessa Marshall. I've been reviewing Fuck Tinder by David Rodwin at Performance Works as part of the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival. Please join the Theatre Addicts YouTube page and our feed and keep watching for other feeds that come up. Hopefully you'll leave your comments below, and we hope you enjoy Fringe.