Galah

Galah might look like chaos, but every moment, every move is planned, thought out and deliberate – dance moves, clown routines, costumes and the intricate lighting plot.  This includes the show grinding to a halt after one o-so-sad song (‘Where is my Heart?  Where is my Life?’) and some anarchic and despairing destruction by Elizabeth Dawson-Smith – or Miss Friby, if you prefer – and Louise Purcell, who has burst onto the stage as if shot from a cannon. 

And we, the audience, are sent out of the theatre.  Right out - into the street – and then, shivering in the cold, being chastised by the bloke we thought was the box office/barkeep guy who says that we have been a pretty disappointing audience.

Back inside, the show resumes with a crazy costume change, from feathered froufrou to fringed little costumes, lots of leg and silver fright wigs that look as if the two performers have been electrocuted – or Phyllis Diller.  There is a lot of exhaustingly energetic dance, seamlessly combining elements of the many, many dance routines and genres – from ballroom to bump’n’grind - that Dawson-Smith has absorbed and mastered over the years. 

A blackout.  The performers disappear.  The box office/barkeep guy – also follow-spot operator - comes on in a huge weird, South American (?) headdress, and does a cute dance of his own to great acclaim only to be replaced by Dawson-Smith and Purcell in identical slinky and very short green sequin frocks in which the two of them are pointed cliches.  Handfuls of money are pulled out of bras and scattered over the audience.  There are some songs that fit nicely into the flow of things, such as ‘I Wanna Be Loved by You’ in a far sleazier version than Marilyn Monroe’s in Some Like It Hot – even without the frock.  There are some little jackets with white collars and cuffs that denote the men who pay for this sort of thing.

Galah has everything - comedy, burlesque, cabaret, glamour, wild choreography, and clowning.  But it’s not, as in many shows that have everything, a bit of this and a bit of that tossed together anyhow.  Here, the elements gel into something that never lets up and has you rivetted, laughing, shocked, and hugely entertained – even when you are not always entirely sure that the hell is going on. 

What is going on and what we are getting is ‘intellectual clowning’.  And the clowning is expert.  A brilliant little sequence has Dawson-Smith attempting to sit on a bench and repeatedly somehow slipping off, or missing the bench, until the only way she can stay on the bench is to adopt a come-hither cheesecake pose – another little cliché dig.  And you have to be very good to make bad or clumsy look entertaining. 

Later, the two performers take a break on that bench, patting themselves between the legs until Dawson-Smith sighs and says, ‘Well, that’s enough beating around the bush.’  It’s the only explicit double entendre in the show.  The rest is there to be inferred…

What we infer or recognise under the frenetic, frantic, breakneck pace is that all this is a subversive take on cabaret itself and multiple merging images of women as sex object performers.  It’s a completely non-solemn, non-preachy funny feminist show. 

What Dawson-Smith and Purcell do is strip away cliches, conventions and clothing until what’s left is two women – still dancing – until they can hardly stand.  Galah could not work without the talent, energy and wit of these two women.  Neither is a youngster fresh out of dance school; they are seasoned but highly individual magnetic performers.  I don’t know where Galah will show up next, but I hope it’s somewhere and soon so that more people can see – no, experience - it.

Michael Brindley