Confessions of a Grindr Addict

For those who have never come across it, Grindr is a location-based social networking app for gay men. It enables users to locate, chat to, and meet up with other guys within a given proximity. This year the application hit four million users across 192 countries, with over one million logging on every day. Put simply, where homosexual dating is concerned, it's a pretty big deal. It's also an absolutely fascinating topic for theatre, opening up possibilites for interesting takes on a popular, highly technologised, mechanised form of human interaction.

Unfortunately, it's the one area Confessions of a Grindr Addict steadfastly refuses to go, preferring instead to indulge in camp titillation regarding various Grindr escapades. So, we learn that Felix, our protagonist, met a foot fetishist using the app, and that it once helped him haul in 10 men in 14 days. There's plenty more, but I won't spoil the excitement any further. Needless to say, beyond a throwaway line about Grindr's one-tap potential to "strip away all the mess" of meeting partners, and a moment's reflection on the fact that it is indeed different to normal, face-to-face dating, it's hard to see what it is that lifts this into the realms of drama. Gavin Roach provides a confident and sassy one-man performance, though relies heavily on repetitious mannerisms – taking a slurp of wine, for instance, just before choking out a particularly gossipy one-liner. Then again, it's gossip that takes centre stage in a slightly vacuous piece which seems far more interested in the idea of anonymous sex than in its implications.