The Dateless Wonder.
Nominated for the Meyer-Whitworth Award - One of the highest monetary prizes for playwriting in the UK.
Meet Jo Jo - a guest at her friend Jules’ wedding. The same Jules who, even on her hen night, was outrageously flirting and attempting to snog Dermot O’'Leary lookalikes.
Jules is marrying Dave, who himself can only be described as ‘men behaving sadly’.
As far as Jo Jo is concerned, it’s not just the wedding, but the whole day that is one huge mistake.
She has turned up without a date, looking rather disheveled after suffering an unfortunate hair-and-outfit incident and is forced to mingle with a whole host of Jules’ mad relatives.
Surely things can’t get any worse, can they? Well, that depends on what happens when she bumps into her long-term crush.
‘THE DATELESS WONDER’ is a brand new comedy that follows the journey of a young British-Punjabi female, single in a world of couples, togetherness and nightmare off-spring. How is a girl to survive her first English wedding when she has only ever been to traditional Punjabi weddings?
Sample
ACT 1
SCENE 1 - Present Day
Lights up. Church bells sound.
Jo Jo staggers onto the stage looking dishevelled, swearing under her breath. She’s completely bogged down with an oversize present. She has been splashed by a tap moments earlier. She clocks the audience.
JO JO:
This is just great. My friend is getting married and I look like I’ve pissed myself.
It still seems dead weird, Jules getting married. Jules?
Jules, who was a complete party animal at university. Married?
The girl who could single-handedly drink the whole rugby team under the table! A wife? Three years running, she was nominated the resident tequila shots champion! And when we left uni, things didn’t calm down. Even on her hen night, she was outrageously flirting, trying to snog Dermot O’Leary1 lookalikes.
But, she says she’s giving it all up to go live in the suburbs with a whacking great mortgage, playing Mrs to a Mr ‘looks nothing like Dermot O’Leary'.
And not one of her loved ones, and that includes me, has tried talking her out of it! Shit!
Don’t get me wrong, I wish her all the best and hope she’s happy. I’m just happy I’m not one of the bridesmaids. Thank God!
Jules can ‘Tuscan Peach’ about the colour scheme till the cows come home. The last thing anyone needs whilst prematurely waving off a damn fine party girl is to look like a tangerine with matching shoes.
Mind you, the alternative hasn’t proven much better. So far, it’s all gone from bad to worse.
SCENE 2: Flashback
Jo Jo is in the back of a taxi.
JO JO:
On the way here, I was sat in the back of this minicab, wedged between two other friends, Abi and Pete, and a huge gift-wrapped Amazon-patterned duvet and pillow set, exclusive to Argos on my lap.
Abi’s boyfriend Simon immediately pounced on the front seat, like all men, profusely claiming.
AS SIMON:
I need space.
JO JO:
Men? Once they’re in a car, there is always a sudden loss of flex in the knee joint. Any other time, like on a football pitch, there’s Simon lunging up and down like a kangaroo on springs. He’ll be making this huge masculine display of how thoroughly he’s warming up. Giving it all…
AS SIMON:
Feast your eyes on this, ladies. Fat Bob from the Ferret Arms pub five-a-side footy team says these knees are a keepy-uppy phenomenon.
JO JO:
Yet in a car…
AS SIMON:
Sorry, my body will only function under the principles of yoga. I need to stretch.
JO JO:
That way, he can avoid the damage the epic journey of a whole 20 minutes can do to a man’s anatomy.
You know what this is? Simon suffers from what is commonly known as ‘man vision’. We women see a guy who’s barely 5ft 7in. And no way would he ever come up as a size medium in Gap.
He looks in the mirror and sees a 6ft Adonis.
AS SIMON:
What are you, woman? Blind? Can you not see how big and beefy I am? Even a fly wouldn’t attempt going through the limited space between my chest and the dashboard.
JO JO:
Man vision! Which is why Simon was unable to hold the present, so he wouldn’t be squashed. He could’ve been cradling a well-fed rhino; his surroundings would still be spacious.
Throughout the whole journey, Simon kept doing that whole drama of constantly pushing his seat back to the point that even a dwarf sat behind him would’ve felt rather wedged in. So imagine how we felt?
Ahh, but alas, Simon came up with a solution. To ease our cramped conditions, Simon wound his window down, so we could enjoy the gentle summer breeze.
Name me one person on God’s great earth that has ever enjoyed the gentle summer breeze whilst doing 60mph over the Beckton flyover?
A hurricane was hitting my perfectly styled hair… and the rest of my body? All hot and sweaty.
Let’s just say I didn’t exactly ooze that sex-siren quality, turning up to the church with wet armpits, scarecrow hair and a crumpled outfit - all the while attempting to elegantly climb out the car, present in hand, without showing Jules’ ageing male relatives my knickers.
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