THE worldwide success of Friends, the merchandising and the actors' inflated fees is something of a mystery. The humour's not as sharp as is claimed and it's all a bit too cute, not to say veering toward the schmaltzy.

Musicals are also a serious no-no. All that sudden breaking into song, the cheesy facial expressions and melodrama - ridiculous stuff.

So maybe this reviewer wasn't the ideal candidate to see Personals, which runs at Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford until tomorrow (Saturday).

First, it's written by two of the creators of Friends - David Crane and Marta Kauffman.

Second, it's a musical.

Billed as a cross between Friends, Seinfeld and Frasier set to music, this romantic comedy takes its inspiration from the desperate drive to find a soul mate. In this case, through the personal ads in a New York newspaper.

And judging by the opening few minutes, the writers have certainly done their research (all strictly professional, I'm sure) when a succession of lonely hearts ads are read out. From the bog standard single white female looking for love to the mind boggling: "Married couple seeks transvestite dwarf," all human life is out there.

On this romantic search are three twenty-to-thirtysomething good looking men and women ranging from a basket case who listens to self-help tapes, to fairly well adjusted professionals who just haven't found that someone special, to a cocksure but bored architect looking for that transvestite dwarf for a threesome with the wife.

The characters come and go as they sing their way through their allotted mid-tempo pseudo-jazz songs. With the exception of the more readily identifiable characters, this flitting about makes it difficult to remember who's who, what their looking for and why? A bit more in the way of plot and character development would make things easier to follow and more engaging.

The breaks between the songs, where individual cast members enter monologues, don't reveal enough. But maybe the aim is for a broad comedic brush stroke not so much a character- and story-driven piece.

With some smart lines and pleasing rhyming couplets, Personals quite nicely satirises the insecure, self-deluding role-playing of the dating game. Despite the surface cynicism, the show, like us all, is romantic at heart.

You have to admire the technique: the way the actors switch from song to dialogue in an instant and with intonation and nuance, convey a fleeting sentiment.

It was all lapped up by most of a near full house. Not bad, if you like that kind of thing.

James Bowman.