Trevor Jones’s one man show Sticky Situations is coming to town this month. After a sold out session at Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival the singer, pianist and entertainer is heading to the west coast to reveal the tale of his dating disasters.
‘The show’s all about awkward gay dating. How the show basically came to be was I spent a lot of time working at The Butterfly Club, this amazing little cabaret venue in Melbourne either working on my own show or other people’s. I knew the bar staff really well and every time I’d go in it would seem like I had a new more outrageous story for them about something that had happened to me, and they said Trevor, you need to do a show about this.’
Reflecting on a succession of unsuccessful dates, Jones created a whole show complete with a giant accordion, tunes and anecdotes.
‘There’s that horrible thing of meeting someone online, then chatting to them and then meeting them in person and finding out that they are not witty at all or even vaguely interesting, these guys who can type, but can’t quite talk. There must be some sort of witty comment generator on Gaydar that guys can use.’
Jones makes no claim to be a dating guru though, highlighting that the show is about all the dates that have gone wrong for him. He does nominate good lighting and an exit strategy as a good approach when heading off on a first date.
‘Cafe’s are good, seeing someone in real lighting, when they’re awake and not trying to pull anything. I must admit I’ve been on a number of dates where I’ve asked a friend to call me or when a date has gone to the bathroom, quickly texted a friend and said “Call me in five minutes”
‘My biggest fault is I talk too much, I think a lot of gay guys our big problem is we give away all our secrets in the online chat and then having nothing to talk about on the actual date. Grindr especially has ruined all of the surprises.’
Jones utilises the popular phone app in the show, which is sure to be a whole new kind of audience participation that has possibly not been utilised at His Majesties Theatre before.
Sticky Situations in downstairs at The Maj from September 21-24 as part of the Comedy and Cabaret Carnivale.
Graeme Watson
