Urban Display Suite

Urban Display Suite
Written by Michael Dalley. Lawler Studio, Melbourne Theatre. Until January 21, 2012.

While most of us are worrying about how to pay our mortgage whilst caught between the GFC that was, and the Recession that will be, the talented Michael Dalley chooses the property boom as his latest satirical target. With biting lyrics set to albeit simplistic and vaudevillian type melodies, Dalley and company tear down the bogan middle class icons and show us our real selves in such cutting numbers as “Shit Art Of the Mornington Peninsula” and “McMansion Façade”.

But whilst there is abundant lampooning of pretension, there is very little real satirical depth exploring the indecent exploitation of the real estate market, and perhaps the opportunity has been missed to actually say something of meaning ….a chance to make the audience think while they are laughing… within the context of a cabaret. For, at barely 70 minutes, cabaret - or revue -  is what this is; amusing, enjoyable and ultimately forgettable. I am one person who likes my satire to be unforgettable, and Urban Display Suite made me long for the Cabaret and Theatre restaurant offerings of the 70s and 80s – when satirists like Max Gillies could destroy our political system with wicked caricatures and not a single four letter word.

Times have changed; and in today’s theatre market this show constitutes a fun, if short, night out. Lyall Brooks shows his professionalism throughout, and steals the show with “One Day (this will all be mine) as he eagerly awaits his elderly parents death to get their real estate. Dalley himself is personable throughout and never once tries to upstage. But the show veers from its property investment premise after the first three songs and doesn’t find its way back for another forty minutes, content instead to attack middle-class mores. With 16 songs, and no book at all to speak of, it’s a pity the two female performers aren’t stronger vocally. Emily Barrie’s simple set of 3 dimensional letters and back projection works a treat – but I’m always wary of smoke machines for no apparent reason. It’s not musical theatre, even of the non-narrative kind, (as suggested) but it’s good cabaret that would work better in a club where we could all spill our merlot as we chuckled.

Coral Drouyn

Photographer: Mike Emmett

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