The Stage at Bats Theatre is set with three cubicles, dressed with those print-outs of cutesy platitudes we’ve all spent our days with in offices. Guitarist Damian Tjiptono seamlessly keeps the soundscape humming along the whole show. From the get-go, the show is bright, zesty, quippy and warm.

Written by Lizzy Burton-Wood and presented by Oh That Theatre Company, Five Words or Less is a great example of how musicals needn’t be big budget, extravagant or with opera-grade vocalists. Music and song accent the story and the playful tone, but the character journey is front and centre once the show gets going.

The show is sung and spoken, with great supporting vocals by Craig Hutchison, Lydia Sainsbury and Ngarongonui Mareikura-Ellery. Shout out to Lydia’s excellent performance as the family dog, Ngarongonui’s sultry goth girl stare and Craig’s delightfully energetic percussion.

Eudora (Lizzy Burton) and Jamie (Olive Riordan) are totally over writing birthday cards and want to nab the writing spot in the Father’s Day department. They search for the right combination of words and images to encapsulate that Dadness. Is it boats? Cars? Rugby? What do Dads even do?

I like the exploration of the workplace friendship, with Jamie mourning the potential loss of that friendship when one of them is bound to get shifted up to the Father’s Day department. They explore that weird zone where friendship and co-worker mingles. You spend every day together, “know all the names of their dog and the dogs before that dog”, yet you never actually spend time outside of work. How do you bridge that? Is it even appropriate to or will it just implode everything and make work awkward?

The emotional current of the show really gets going when Eudora and Jamie both visit their Dads to try and extract some good data for their cards. Jamie plays Eudora’s gruff and blokey sports-and-cars Dad with real craft. They are thoughtful and commanding, offsetting Lizzy Burton’s beautifully nervy and eccentric Eudora.

Some of the lines are lost due to some dropped words and where projection and a little more clarity in delivery would have helped, but that’s an easy fix. I think there could be a little script tweaking to sharpen the story and get to the heart of the piece a little sooner, or extract a little more from the rich ground that is the office workplace.

Five Words or Less is a joyous hour that skilfully balances fun and poignancy.

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