Cilla Black this ain’t: three-ways, anal sex with small penises, and porn preferences are some of the things that pop up in this rollercoaster of a blind date. Bojana Novakovic certainly has more dates a week than the average single urbanite: each night of the festival, in her role as ‘Anna’, she meets a new companion for a night of chatting, flirting and singing. They are, after all, in a karaoke bar (the cabaret bar of Zoo Southside requisitioned for the purpose). A karaoke bar run by a veritable dominatrix of a lady, a host/MC with a quick tongue and no patience for small talk.

As we enter, the host is singing – people come in, settle into seats, drink and chat. We are invited to submit our karaoke requests. The lights dim on the stage and come up on the bar, where Novakovic/Anna waits. A man enters – Simon – with a bunch of flowers. He is endearingly awkward and she is refreshingly forward. On our tables, there is a menu stating that the performers have no script, that each night is completely improvised with the actors receiving instructions from the director via SMS.

Watching the date unfold is as thrilling and entertaining as you might expect. Anna fires questions at her victim with loose abandon (she later reveals that her friends have suggested she date someone younger who she can control). He responds with a combination of only faintly suppressed surprise and gamely repartee. She is definitely wearing the proverbial trousers.  Their phones ring, buzz and bleep – punctuating their conversation and presenting new challenges for them to incorporate into their budding romance. The sonic intrusions sadly seem completely normal within the world of the date.

Anna then has the idea of them choosing karaoke songs for each to sing to each other, based on their profile. When their songs come up, they sing to each other and to us. As each of them sing, attention shifts to them and to other people in the bar – watching, chatting, in their own worlds of night-time entertainment. It is a simple, but smart format. Anna and Simon are two people in a room, all there for the same reason – they just happen to be the ones with the spotlight on them. In that sense, it could be any of us (but thank God it isn’t). The sense that we share the same space, and that anything can happen draws us in and makes us a part of what is happening. We feel more connected to them – and to each other. It is a playful and clever construct: live, immediate and entirely unpredictable.

At one point, the chap receives a phone call from his mum – he lies about who he is with and what he is doing, his date gets shirty. She threatens to walk out, but he manages to make it up to her and eventually, they head into the night together. The Blind Date Project is a riotously funny evening that will chime with daters everywhere.