Housework (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★★

Written by Emily Steel. Sydney Theatre Company. Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre. 5 Sep – 17 Oct, 2026.

Despite the domestic double-meaning of the title, Housework is less about washing, ironing, vacuuming and cooking – although there is discussion of all of those – it’s about the ways the greasy pole of politics changes people. Idealism is cute and all, but power is better.

Anna (Emily Taheny) is the hard-working chief of staff for a first term MP in a marginal seat, Ruth Mandour (Susie Youssef). Along with Media Advisor Ben (Laurence Boxhall) and junior staffer Kelly (Franca Lafosse) she tries to keep Ruth on the straight and narrow – not an easy task. To help Ruth table her first bill, Anna uses her past relationship (professional and otherwise) to get time with a senior Minister, Paul (Johnny Nasser). But when Paul’s attentions are more focused on the young and naive Kelly, rather than Ruth’s women’s health bill, a scandal is brewing that could topple the PM (Indira Naidoo) and make or break careers.

I love a political comedy. Shows like Yes, Minister, Veep or The Thick of It still hold up today because the nature of politics doesn’t change. The mix of power, greed and vanity brings out the most ridiculous in people. Let’s face it, you need to laugh or you’ll cry.

What Emily Steel has managed to do with such finesse is tackle a lot of tricky topics with a lightness of touch. Questions of consent mix with toxic work cultures and big questions about the calculus of power without ever feeling didactic. And best of all, it doesn’t rely on obvious answers or two-dimensional characters to make its point. This comedy sings along without short-changing the issues at hand.

These are the kinds of comedic performances that I love to see. Heightened but still rooted in character and humanity, they’re real-ish people in extraordinary circumstances, not caricatures waiting for a punchline. It’s easy to laugh with, and at, them because we’re also feeling a whole range of emotions along with them – anger, frustration, attraction, love.

At the play’s core, Taheny and Youssef play things straight, full of wry wit as they try to work together. Taheny’s Anna is trying to balance motherhood and marriage with her life in politics, while Youssef’s Ruth just wants to make her mark and improve the lives of women. But it’s the satellite duo of Boxhall’s Ben and Lafosse’s Kelly where things shine even brighter.

Franca Lafosse’s over-enthusiastic and wide-eyed Kelly has a heart as big as her mile-wide grin, and her brilliant characterisation keeps the audience wondering – is she hopelessly idealistic and being taken advantage of, or is she a grown woman capable of making her own choices? As she learns some life lessons the hard way, Lafosse takes Kelly through a whole range of emotional states without losing her core innocence.

On the other end of the spectrum is Laurence Boxhall’s media-manipulating Ben, a harried but friendly presence till he isn’t. It’s another nicely layered performance that keeps revealing itself as the play goes on.

But really, it’s the script that makes Housework work so well. It’s tight, it’s funny, it’s balanced like one of those fancy Japanese kitchen knives, and just as cutting. The political faithful and the political agnostic will both have fun with this one.