Grace Campbell: ‘I’m moving into a different feeling of wanting to protect myself quite a lot’
If dating is a numbers game, no one is playing it better than Grace Campbell. Earlier this year, the 29-year-old comedian, actor and author went on 28 dates in two months – which equates to roughly one every two days. The premise was simple: set up the dates, record and analyse each of them with the help of two pals, then package up the whole thing for a podcast, 28 Dates Later, all the while maintaining a modicum of sanity.
“It was very intense,” says Campbell, smiling and stroking her dog, Eddie, in between sips of tap water at a pub in north London. “I did four dates in one day; I was so drunk by the end of it,” she laughs. “After that, I started doing them sober. But then that was f***ing boring.”
The “28 dates” concept was coined by journalist Willard Foxton, who set out on the same challenge himself in 2013, every date as material in her stand-up. The result is a hilarious, at times eye-wateringly raw, 28-part series that lifts the lid on the Byzantine world of modern dating.
