LIFE OF A USELESS

16 September 2026

For decades I’ve resisted making critical comments about theatre because such views could so easily have been assigned to Melbourne Theatre Company itself rather than me. Even now, I feel somewhat queasy about criticising the well-meaning work of playwrights and directors, actors and designers. But I can’t let Day (after Day) in the Life of the Useless pass without comment.

Why? Because before I went there were two extreme views. A dear friend’s comment after seeing it was blunt: “bloody dreadful.” But then the reviewer from Limelight, an eminently respectable arts journal, gave it 4 stars calling it “consistently funny and well written”.  Who was right? And the answer is my theatre loving friend. As for well written, was it a play about AI and its impact on us as humans? Was it an Absurdist comedy? Was it a sad story of a man who keeps making bad decisions? What was it actually about? And as for comedy, I don’t think the occasional tiny burst of laughter from J19 or C12 makes it a comedy. I’ve sat in enough theatres all over the world to know when an audience isn’t enjoying their night in the theatre and this was one of them.

It’s such a pity because the writer, Will O’Mahoney, is local and did an impressive performance in the lead. But there were other challenges as well. The women characters felt is they’d been created by a misogynist but whether that was in the writing or the direction wasn’t clear. The other male roles were played as caricatures as well although I confess that I did like the range of yellow outfits that Steve Le Marquand wore. And as for the well-choreographed fight scene – what was that for? Altogether a confusing and disappointing night in the theatre.

Still, that’s the risk you take – and should keep taking – when it comes to live performance. I can’t really complain. I had the great Humphrey Bower/An Imaginary Life experience just days earlier so a 50% hit rate is bearable.