Chicken Shop Date
{{short description|British YouTube interview series}}
{{Infobox television
| image = Chicken Shop Date logo.png
| image_size = 175
| genre = Interview
| creator = Amelia Dimoldenberg
| writer = {{Plainlist|
- Amelia Dimoldenberg
- Ania Magliano
}}
| presenter = Amelia Dimoldenberg
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| num_episodes = 104
| executive_producer = Amelia Dimoldenberg
| company = Dimz Inc.
| network = YouTube
| first_aired = {{Start date|2014|03|12|df=y}}
| last_aired = present
}}
Chicken Shop Date is a British YouTube interview show created and hosted by Amelia Dimoldenberg, and produced by her production company Dimz Inc.{{Cite web |last=Chan |first=J. Clara |date=2022-08-30 |title='Chicken Shop Date' Creator Amelia Dimoldenberg Signs With CAA |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/chicken-shop-date-amelia-dimoldenberg-caa-1235208332/ |access-date=2024-02-12 |website=The Hollywood Reporter |language=en-US}} The show features celebrity interviews that are framed as dates in a local chicken shop.
The series' first YouTube video was posted in March 2014, and as of April 11, 2025, 104 episodes have been released. The show has been nominated for several awards, winning Indie Series at the Streamy Awards in 2022 after garnering popularity for its "gleeful subversion of the classic late-night talk show format."{{Cite news |last=Goldstein |first=Jessica M. |date=March 14, 2023 |title=She goes on awkward 'dates' with celebs. Now she's flirting with fame. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/03/14/chicken-shop-date-amelia-dimoldenberg/ |access-date=February 12, 2024 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}
Format
The format of Chicken Shop Date involves Amelia Dimoldenberg meeting a celebrity guest at a local chicken shop for a date. A humorous element is the setting of the chicken shop, a brightly-lit fast food shop that is generally not considered a romantic setting.{{Cite news |last=Zinoman |first=Jason |date=2024-11-15 |title=‘Chicken Shop Date’ and the Art of Talk-Show Flirtation |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/arts/television/comedy-flirting-chicken-shop-date.html |access-date=2024-11-18 |work=The New York Times}}
Dimoldenberg has revealed that each episode takes around forty minutes to film, but finished episodes last no longer than eight minutes. "Only the funniest, flirtiest moments survive, spliced together with strategically deployed B-roll of food prep and the chicken shop's staff at work." Questions asked are often chaotic, awkward, and playful, as well as questions such as "snog, marry, avoid?". Dimoldenberg flirts with her guests, often alternating between flattery and teasing insults.
Production
Chicken Shop Date is shot in fried-chicken restaurants around the city. Each episode costs around six thousand dollars to produce. As of March 2025, Dimoldenberg employed a creative producer, a social media manager, and a personal assistant. Since “Chicken Shop Date” is released roughly once a month, she selects her guests carefully, stating "It has to feel like an organic fit. I need to genuinely be a fan of them and their work. If I fancy them, that’s a bonus. It is a dating show, after all." Dimoldenberg usually films for thirty to forty minutes. In the show's early years, final episodes were trimmed to three or four minutes, but they now often extend up to twelve.{{Cite news |last=Mead |first=Rebecca |date=2025-02-24 |title=The Flirt Behind “Chicken Shop Date” |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/03/the-flirt-behind-chicken-shop-date |access-date=2025-03-23 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}
Dimoldenberg’s onscreen persona is largely shaped during the editing process, which she oversees. The character's standoffishness and awkwardness are accentuated through jump cuts and extended shots of her expressive, often quizzical facial expressions.
History
Chicken Shop Date originally began as a column written by a then 17-year-old Dimoldenberg for her local under-21s youth magazine.{{Cite web |title=Chicken Shop Date star Amelia Dimoldenberg cries foul over youth cuts |url=https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/chicken-shop-date-star-amelia-dimoldenberg-cries-foul-over-youth-cuts |access-date=2024-02-12 |website=Camden New Journal |language=en-gb}} Beginning by interviewing 'friends of friends', she decided to frame the chats as dates 'because that might be a fun way to interview people'.{{Cite web |title=Chicken Shop Date is the dating show we actually want to watch |url=https://mixmag.net/feature/chicken-shop-date |access-date=2024-02-12 |website=Mixmag}} The location of a chicken shop was chosen as "somewhere you wouldn't expect to be taken on a first date". In 2014 Dimoldenberg met a camera operator, whom she "convinced to help film one of her dates".{{Cite news |last=Haramis |first=Nick |date=2022-02-26 |title=Finding Love, One Nugget at a Time |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/style/chicken-shop-date-amelia-dimoldenberg.html |access-date=2024-02-12 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} This was with the rapper Ghetts and was the first Chicken Shop Date video uploaded to YouTube. It attracted just over one thousand views in the first two weeks.
Initially, Chicken Shop Date exclusively featured male guests, as Dimoldenberg was hesitant to include women out of concern that the dating premise would not translate. However, reconsidering this literal interpretation, she began featuring female guests in 2017, and some of the show's most popular episodes have since included women.
In 2024, Dimoldenberg's interview with Andrew Garfield became particularly successful, largely due to a viral "meet-cute" that took place between her and Garfield on the red carpet of the 2022 British GQ Men of the Year awards, and a second meeting on the red carpet of the 2023 Golden Globe Awards.{{Cite web |last=Rosenbloom |first=Alli |date=2024-10-18 |title=Why Andrew Garfield’s flirty appearance on ‘Chicken Shop Date’ has the internet abuzz |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/18/entertainment/andrew-garfield-chicken-shop-date/index.html |access-date=2024-11-18 |website=CNN |language=en}}
List of episodes
Reception
Jason Zinoman of The New York Times described Dimoldenberg as "flamboyantly unimpressed", and that "over the past decade, she has consistently produced entertainingly charged conversations."
Accolades
| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ !Year !Award !Category !Nominee(s) !Result !Ref. |
| 2021
|Indie Series | rowspan="6" |Chicken Shop Date |{{won}} |
|---|
| rowspan="2" |2022
| rowspan="2" |Streamy Awards |Unscripted Series |{{nom}} |
| Show of the Year
|{{nom}} |
| rowspan="3" |2023
|Interview Series |{{nom}} |
| rowspan="2" |Streamy Awards
|Unscripted Series |{{nom}} |
| Show of the Year
|{{nom}} |
See also
Notes
{{Notelist}}