Last Tuesday night I watched investors across Australia spit the dummy as Labour’s new budget recast housing as ‘shelter’ rather than investment while, at the same time, I accepted the terms on a rent increase from my own landlord.

On Friday night, I was in Malthouse’s Merlyn Theatre watching a family of seven threatened with eviction by a land-grabbing Priest.

Bloomshed’s Pride and Prejudice. Photo © Photo Simon Fazio

Bloomshed has been pinballing around Melbourne’s independent theatre scene for more than 10 years with its larger-than-life adaptations of various classics. The 16-strong ensemble has thrown Tennessee Williams into a dodgeball game, made Adam and Eve do jazzercise, and theatricalised an Orwellian Royal Commission with equally Orwellian animals.

For its long-awaited, glittering mainstage debut, it has put its satirical stamp on Jane Austen’s 1813 canonical portrait of class, love and family, Pride and Prejudice.

Pride and Prejudice takes Austen’s most famous couple – Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy –...