Sharp play Thanks For Having Me is Men Behaving Badly meets Friends. It’s light, bright, date-night fun, writes GEORGINA BROWN

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By GEORGINA BROWN FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Published: 10:41 BST, 15 April 2025 | Updated: 10:42 BST, 15 April 2025

Thanks For Having Me (Riverside Studios, London)

Verdict: It was my pleasure

Rating:

(FOUR STARS)

Following a couple of sell-out runs in small theatres, Keelan Kember’s fast, funny dating drama looks a tad dwarfed in the barnlike Riverside Studios, as if it’s happening on the telly over there. 

Which is actually where, sharply trimmed, this Men Behaving Badly-meets-Friends sitcom would work even more of a treat.

Following a couple of sell-out runs in small theatres, Keelan Kember’s fast, funny dating drama Thanks For Having Me looks a tad dwarfed in the barnlike Riverside Studio

Talented Kember is hilarious as Cashel, almost 30, a posh, neurotic, hypochondriac (allergic to almost everything), egomaniac romantic

Talented Kember is hilarious as Cashel, almost 30, a posh, neurotic, hypochondriac (allergic to almost everything), egomaniac romantic.

Dumped by his girlfriend of forever, he is tutored in the ways of dating by his super-chilled, determinedly singleton best-mate, Honey, played by Sex Education’s Kedar Williams-Stirling.

The rules of the game are simple: sound interesting (musician better than accountant), talk holidays, get her back to your place, insist there’s no sex on a first date to set a challenge, play Amy Winehouse to prove you’re a sensitive soul. 

Enjoy, then move swiftly on to the next one. 

Piece of cake. 

As Cashel discovers when Honey’s current squeeze, Maya (Adeyinka Akinrinade) introduces him to her up-for-it therapist friend, Eloise (Game of Thrones’ Nell Tiger Free).

Trouble is, Cashel falls instantly in love with the leggy blonde. 

He wants an intense, exclusive, old-fashioned relationship — hopefully forever — with said cake. 

As Cashel discovers when Honey’s current squeeze, Maya, who is played by Adeyinka Akinrinade, introduces him to her up-for-it therapist friend, Eloise (Game of Thrones’ Nell Tiger Free)

But footloose, fancy-free Eloise wants to keep things casual: no kisses goodbye, no breakfast, just wham, bam, thanks for having me and see you around. In other words, she doesn’t want to be seen as a prize. 

She wants to be as free as a man.

Needless to say, the lads switch emotional positions, and one thread of a romcom becomes a love story.

The men are considerably better-written and more amusing than the sketchily drawn women, but Kember skilfully charts that tricky emotional passage from no-strings to tentative connection to provisional attachment to tying the knot. 

Light, bright date-night fun.

Until April 26.

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Sharp play Thanks For Having Me is Men Behaving Badly meets Friends. It’s light, bright, date-night fun, writes GEORGINA BROWN

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