Based on the best-selling book by John Gray, this one-man educational show starring Ian Houghton is like a much funnier (and much cheaper) relationship counseling session. Set in a lecture theatre and complete with PowerPoint, Houghton the relationship guru seeks to teach us about the simple differences between men and women, how those differences cause conflict when they aren’t understood, and how we can overcome the conflict so that our relationship is long and harmonious.
There are some real and honest insights in some parts of the show, at which my ears perked up. Of particular enjoyment was a section with some obscure and hilarious but totally relatable metaphors: how a woman is like a garden while a man is like a dolphin, and why treating your partner how you would want to be treated is absolutely not the answer. Aside from these occasional enlightening moments, however, many of the relationship conflicts are stereotypical and the advice sometimes cliché. Perhaps this is simply because the book has now been in publication for over twenty years and its insights have spread by word of mouth.
The book was written by one man and the show is also presented thus. The show could be improved by having a female presented onstage as well, as often the whole thing degenerated into an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ logic - Houghton refers to men as ‘we,’ for example. The play was supposedly interactive, but would have benefited from more interaction than just having one audience couple involved. The room was full of couples who might have made hilarious fodder for laughs. Furthermore, I sometimes felt as though we were being taught how women could make the relationship better – just by tolerating these hilarious and adorable flaws in your man. Women are occasionally made to seem a bit petty and men just cutely unaware.
However, this improves and the show becomes good-humoured and more equal in the partitioning of blame as you go along. You can’t help but laugh even when it’s all very cringingly cliché. This show has a slim demographic of couples who have been married for five or more years and, although they may have enjoyed the show more, it was an overall pleasant performance for all.
