'When Sally met Gary Henry Harry' by Cecilia Alexander.

Nottingham New Theatre Online Season.

Sally is bored at the start of lockdown, and after chatting with best friend Chrissy, she is coerced into looking for love by turning to Tinder. With little faith in the dating site, she gives it a go, never expecting to find "the one", but after a few virtual dates she realises that the first one, was indeed "the one". A bit like when you go shopping, find something you really like at the start of the shopping trip, walk all the way around town and then go back to that first shop and buy the item you saw six hours previously!!

To be honest, I had a few doubts about this piece but gradually I started to really warm to this "girl finds boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back again" story. So much so that the very end scene, I felt like dancing around with Sally and Harry.

There are some lovely comedy moments written into this piece, like the Wombats/Wombles and Sally's crazy dancing, which she does a lot. I also enjoyed the conversations between both Sally and Chrissy and Harry and his best friend Flinty, because they were so well observed in what was said and the way it was said. There was a succinct difference between the male and female conversations but both inevitably led to the same conclusion. Surely this shows that the way male and female minds work can't be all that different?

Chrissy (

Katie Booth

) and Sally (

Rachel Coussins

) were instantly likeable characters and I have seen them both Katie and Rachel before so know the quality of their work. When Sally finally admitted to liking Harry, after a few other virtual dates with Gary (Gazza) and Henry, I virtually punched the air and rejoiced with Sally.

Likewise, Flinty (

Charlie Basley

) and Harry (

Demi Idowu

) are again very likeable characters and, like Katie and Rachel I have also seen both actors before and know how good they are.

Charlie

always makes me smile but, and I don't know if it is because I've not been to the New Theatre for such a while, I couldn't remember if the Southern accent was naturally his, or just for this role.

I loved the light and shade of this piece, particularly noticeable with

Rachel

and

Demi

as they both show their character's emotions for each other. I also loved the jokey and sensible advice given by

Katie

and

Charlie

's characters, making this a lovely warm and fuzzy piece of writing.

This really is another way of saying what a well observed script that writer Cecilia Alexander has delivered.

I have just a couple of minor points. The first being that some of the sound production, and mainly in the face-timing sections at the start for Sally was lower in volume and at times not that easy to hear. That however seemed to get resolved as the film went on.

The second is a very minor issue but up until the last sections, Harry seemed to wear the same Tom Tailor Denim hoodie in every shot. I don't know if this was to make out that us blokes don't change our clothes very often, so I could blame Cecilia for this as she also directed the film. Only joking!

And so to the people who are responsible for the behind the scenes work.....

Co-Producers -

Nadia Elalfi

and Ylana Gibert

Assistant Director -

Pete Rouse

Shadow Director -

Lauren Birks

Shadow Producer -

Conor Waldock

Publicity Assistant and Sound Designer - Izzy de Bono

Video Editor -

Caetano Capurro

Graphic Designer - Zoe Smith

Captioner -

Emma Barber

A really well shot, well written and wonderfully acted piece of film that you can see online TONIGHT at 7.30 on the NNT Youtube site and via the NNT Facebook page.