#KWANDA: A Play

Tom Ballard has his crosshairs well and truly set on the ABC this year. His solo show Enough lampooned his firing from the network, and now he’s taking on one of their most beloved programs with #KWANDA.

Ballard has not only done his homework, but has dived headfirst into the Q&A lexicon. Every moment is drenched in satirical brilliance, nailing every nuance of the show and how it so often teeters on the edge of destruction. Even Ballard’s Tony Jones is spot on, with subtle touches like an outstretched arm leaning towards a panellist not going unnoticed by his audience. His supporting players, including fellow MICF performers Geraldine Hickey and Michelle Brasier, play their parts with the archetypal flairs of the more unsavoury roundtable types. Even when the show is at its gloriously calamitous apex, the character notes are still obvious, clever and well balanced. The casting, rounded out with Emily Taheny, Ra Chapman and Patrick Livesey, is just astounding.

There are moments in #KWANDA that go beyond farcical to a point that feels scarily plausible. It’s like an episode of the source material spun into the Black Mirror universe from a dystopian reality only a stone’s throw away from our own. Watching Q&A skirt the edges of a full-blown disaster every week is one thing, but to see the train actually derail so tremendously is both harrowing and cathartic. As each character descends further through the seven layers of their own insanity, the cracks of reality begin to show. The Liberal MP who immediately attacks anyone who questions them, the Labor mid-bencher exhausted by their own party’s infighting, the independent who really has no idea what’s going on - it all hits a little too close to home. A brilliant parody that does what all brilliant parodies should do: showcase a world that could happen all too easily.