A brief review of a brief performance. Per-Verse was something of a revelation, at least to me, going beyond where the shows about dating apps go, and into the world of the ‘real world’ meetups with interested parties (yes, plural). You don’t need to know how dating apps work to understand proceedings – you just need to accept they do work, and also that not everyone who uses them is as perverted as the show’s title (sort of) suggests. If anything, the men Georgie Wedge finds herself dating could, it turns out, have been, well, less boring. A description of a deep kiss gone wrong, more than once, brought to mind the late great Joan Rivers and her observation about how messy men’s urinals can be: “You have a pointer, and you miss.”
The show is very much about Wedge’s world, and you’d better do your best to keep up, because, like the Victoria line when it actually is running a ‘good service’, there’s no messing about. The writing is often clever: the temptation to give you a quote or two – or ten – is great, but this is a performance that has to be seen to be believed. But if the rhyming couplets and astute observations aren’t enough, there are elements of physical theatre to enjoy. A show and steady sink until she does the splits is simultaneously tense and assured, in the sense that there was, I think, an inner knowing amongst the discerning audience that she wasn’t going to fail.
Interestingly, there’s no attempt to voice various ‘other’ characters, in a departure from most single-performer shows. Wedge’s recollections from her experiences provides insights into the sort of person she (or at least the character she has created of herself on stage) is – there’s an endearing assertiveness as she learns more about herself. The choice of the intimate River Room at Riverside Studios to perform this work was an excellent one – the living room ambience would have been lost in, say, Studio 1 in the same building. To give you an idea of scale, hundreds of people were queued up waiting to be let in to a recording of the BBC Television panel show Have I Got News For You in Studio 1 on the night I attended Per-Verse.
An intriguing if intense evening, it’s a very credible story, and not one over-laced with angst, trauma or First World Problems. This intricate and multilayered show is gritty and fascinating.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Blending stand-up, spoken word and physical performance, Per-Verse is a funny, unfiltered deep-dive into modern dating, sex, and self-discovery.
Structured as a whirlwind journey through a typical city date, the show moves from the bar to the Uber, capturing the highs and horrors of romance in the digital age with Georgie Wedge’s whip-smart spoken word poetry and fast-paced comedy.
Writer and Performer – Georgie Wedge
Director – Ilya Wray
Technical Manager – Felicity Hemming
Sound Design – Aron Gyenge
Voice-Over – Catherine Barrows
Produced by Threepenny Collective
PER-VERSE
Riverside Studios
Selected dates until 19 April 2025
