Somewhere in the first quarter of an hour of The Agents, I gave up any hope of being a composed member of the audience. The laughter stopped being a reaction and became a condition. I was almost beside myself, laughing at how stupid it all was, and I could barely have explained to you what was so funny. That is the most honest description of this show I can offer. It is unhinged, in the best possible way.
Selling the dream
The Agents is a satire of estate agents and the property world in South Africa, and it goes about its business with total conviction. Created and performed by Kyla Davis, Lisa Derryn Overy and Roberto Pombo, and directed by Toni Morkel, it follows Brenda, Venter and Linda, three agents who will say and do almost anything to get a signature on the dotted line. Around them swirl the people who keep the property machine turning: the slick property influencers, the clueless homebuyers and the neighbourhood watch group that treats every passer-by as a problem to be managed.
This is a show with some mileage. It was first seen at the National Arts Festival in 2023, where it won an Ovation Award, and it has since toured the country and earned a Fleur du Cap nomination for Best Ensemble. A production that has lived in front of that many audiences tends to show it in the timing, and the rhythm here is sharp even when the content is gloriously out of control.
Anyone who has bought, sold or rented a home in this country will recognise the territory. Property in South Africa is never only about bricks and mortar. It carries history, fear, ambition and a great deal of money, and the language we use to sell it tells you plenty about what we think we are buying. Talk of security, lifestyle and community floats around every estate brochure and every boom gate. The Agents takes that language and stretches it until it snaps. Gentrification, luxury estate living and the capitalist dream itself all receive the same treatment, which is to say no mercy at all.
What makes it work is how little the show cares about being sensible. The performances are intentionally over the top, exaggerated to a degree that would feel reckless in the hands of less committed performers. Here it feels like a promise being kept. The three performers commit to the bit completely, and then commit some more, and the result is the kind of show you cannot really describe to a friend afterwards. I have tried. “Estate agents, but unhinged” is as close as I have come.
Faces and a good time
The facial expressions deserve a paragraph of their own. The actors stretch and contort their faces into cartoonish extremes, and a single look often does more work than a line of dialogue could. Watching the three of them slip between characters, with a raised eyebrow here and a rictus grin there, shows just how much comedy a face can carry. The company works in the traditions of clowning, mime and physical theatre, with a taste for the grotesque, and you can see that training in every exaggerated gesture.
There is also the matter of joy. It was obvious that the actors were enjoying themselves on stage, and that matters more than we often admit. When performers are clearly having a good time, an audience feels permission to do the same. The energy travelled across the footlights, and before long the whole room seemed to have surrendered to the silliness.
In fairness, this is a weird show, and it will not be funny for everyone. Extreme satire is a particular taste, and anyone who prefers a gentle, polished comedy might find the relentless exaggeration exhausting. Some of the humour is deliberately grotesque and asks you to meet it halfway. I would argue that this is part of the appeal. We do not see enough extreme satire on our stages, and there is something refreshing about a production willing to risk losing a few people in order to delight the rest. There are great moments here, and when the show lands, it really lands.
Beneath the silliness there is a gentle sting. Laughing at the agents is easy, but they are exaggerations of voices we hear constantly, in the WhatsApp group, at the viewing, at the security gate. Satire works best when it lets us laugh first and recognise ourselves a moment later, and The Agents has that timing. You may well leave the theatre looking at the next “For Sale” board a little differently.
Silly, strange and gleefully committed, The Agents is a reminder of what theatre can do when it stops trying to be polite. If you like your comedy sharp, physical and slightly out of control, go and see it. Take someone with a sense of humour, and be prepared to be a little beside yourself.
Oh and the play ends in space. Don’t ask...
The Agents runs at Theatre on the Square until the 31st of October 2026.