“The basic premise of the play is Tinder meets World of Warcraft. I have never used either!” laughs Lily Lindon, the author of this new, never-before-seen student-written piece. “But I was playing with the idea of those confusing semi-online, semi-offline relationships we all have. I have good friends online, whom I text all the time but whenever we meet, it’s like we’re different people.”

Of course, the core of the joke is that they’re not. Ian and Julie, your girl and boy next door, who fall in love with each other the instant their eyes lock for the first time, which happens to be when they both take their bins out, both play the same RPG game. But of course neither of them realise that the hottie from down the road is the same person as that anonymous player they have been interested in online for months.

Dramatic irony is at the centre of this show, and the crew working on it has made sure that it is going to be blatantly obvious to everyone that Julie and Ian regularly encounter each other, not only in real life but also in the virtual reality of the game. That is, to everyone but them. The director is already arranging a filming schedule for his actors. That’s right, filming. Multimedia is a vital part of the show, ensuring that dramatic irony successfully reaches ridiculous levels of hilarity, the actors playing the characters on stage (i.e. in real life) will also play their avatars in the game, which is going to be projected on the screen behind.

“ROM.com is aware that the genre ingrained in its title is a parody-worthy material and it doesn’t seem to miss an opportunity to mock the silliest of its clichés”

“The screen is supposed to provide satisfaction for this voyeuristic impulse we all get from time to time in the age of social media,” Lindon explains. “Everyone is constantly on their phones and you always have these questions bubbling in your head, like ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘Who are you texting?’’

The characters fall for each other in the close vicinity of rubbish-stuffed bins, which is, what I believe, a brilliant summary of the genre that Lindon is going for with her script, and also a little taste of her subtle comedic genius. ROM.com is aware that the genre ingrained in its title is a parody-worthy material and it doesn’t seem to miss an opportunity to mock the silliest of its clichés.

However, from what Lindon has told me, I’ve gathered that she takes the cheesy and sentimental equally seriously. “It is a parody but it is also genuine – a sort of combination of meta and non-meta. But yes, it does give you the satisfaction of characters falling in love.”

Director, Charlie Morrell-Brown, is incredibly attentive to the half-satirical, half-sincere tone that Lindon has infused in her script. He manages to bring out the very best out of it with his extremely thoughtful directions. Following his careful instruction, the actors spark the comedy not just with their tones of voices but also with their physicality, doing justice to the already incredibly witty script. So far, I have witnessed jokes that are going into the play that have been the product of improvisation - born right on the spot.

“I can guarantee the audience won’t be able to help but believe that the characters on stage are made of exactly the same stuff we all are made of.”

Morrell-Brown is acutely aware of the physical space he is working with and knows exactly how to play up the sincere and raw emotion contained within the script by directing the actors’ movements and motions on and around the stage. Carefully observing the their natural dynamics, he directs tonal changes to tug at the audience’s heartstrings, brightening the hues of contrasting feelings already present on the pages of Lindon’s script by adding in lots of touching details.

The impressively talented actors use the subtleties of their voices and their body language to show the complexity of numerous underlying layers of real human emotions. I can guarantee the audience won’t be able to help but believe that the characters on stage are made of exactly the same stuff we all are made of.

At an astounding pace, the script is coming alive. “The amazing thing about student writing is that nobody has ever worked with this before,” Lindon tells me. ”ROM.com is not like Hamlet where you have a centuries-long history of starkly different performances. These people are the first ever to have fun with it, and they have full agency over it.”

Dream Sequence: one part rock & roll, one part bangers & mash

The amount of genuine investment that goes into putting on this show is unbelievable.

ROM.com runs at the ADC theatre at 11:00pm from Wednesday 14th June - Friday 16th June