Welcome to Terry’s Cars & Automobiles: a 1990s Midwest dealership with one goal—sell 66 cars by Monday. Fueled by absurd satire, original music, and a deeply emotional balloon, this Lecoq-trained ensemble delivers a razor-sharp, delightfully unhinged critique of capitalism, class, and the American Dream. Inspired by real-life sales targets and a This American Life episode, Terry’s is where slapstick meets sincerity, Hollywood meets Memorial Day, and tragedy takes the wheel. It’s funny. It’s weird. It’s unsettlingly familiar.
Find the show at Pleasance Courtyard (Beside) from Wednesday 30th July – Monday 25th August 2025 (not 11th, 19th) at 12:55
What drew you to the story of Terry’s and the world of 1990s American car dealerships?
We were initially inspired to make Terry’s when we improvised a scene in rehearsal about a Faustian deal between a Texan socialite and a Mercedes dealer. As we researched the world of cars and car-selling, we were moved by the colorful characters we encountered as well as by the tragic, Sisyphean dimension of the corporate sales model. We found car dealerships served as an ideal vehicle (pun unintended but welcome) to interrogate capitalism, climate change, and the American Dream.
We love the camp, Americana aesthetics of 1990s car dealerships. Setting our show in the ‘90s also allowed us to examine how the neoliberal spirit of the time paved the way for the current political and economic climate in the States and beyond.
How did you balance satire and sincerity, especially when addressing themes like capitalism and the American Dream?
It was important to us to make a clear distinction between systems and people. We had fun taking swipes at the absurd way capitalism shapes culture and relationships with moments of fantastical stage combat, a car ad turned into a massacre on the beaches of Normandy, and a balloon lover. At the same time, we were careful not to extend our criticism of this dehumanizing system onto the people we encountered in our research. Our top priority has been to create sincere characters that the audience cares about, relates to, and roots for. We aim to distinguish clearly between working-class people who are doing their best to make ends meet, and a system that exploits their time, energy, and labor to protect profit margins.
How does physical theatre help convey the absurdity and emotional depth of the piece?
Physical theatre helps us depart reality to travel somewhere surprising and strange without huge and costly scenic changes. One moment we’re in a car dealership, the next we’re in the Wild West, the jungle of Vietnam, or a CHICAGO-style jazz club, all thanks to simple but precise changes in the body’s posture and movements, and the way we engage with the space. It allows us to play with a larger palette and scale of absurdity and silliness, while keeping the production light on its feet.
How did your Lecoq training influence the ensemble’s approach to devising and performance?
One of the major aspects of Lecoq training is the “autocours” – an original piece created weekly in small groups, in which each member writes, directs, and performs. We have continued in this spirit, with each of us sharing equal responsibility for all artistic roles. The Lecoq pedagogy also places a huge emphasis on improvisation. Likewise, we work largely on our feet, using improv to create sketches of scenes and characters. We’ll sit down to write a script only once something has been set through an iterative process in the rehearsal room. Perhaps most importantly, our Lecoq training instilled a great sense of play and curiosity in us. Often the least likely idea becomes the thing that works best – you just have to give it a fair shot on its feet.
You describe the show as “cabaret in a car dealership” — how does that genre-bending format serve the story?
The cabaret format served as an efficient way into the creative process. We were able to make a bunch of short, fun numbers in a wide variety of styles. As we started to piece the full-length show together, we found the cabaret format helped us introduce and follow each character’s personal arc. Through stylized cabaret numbers, we are able to travel with each character out of the real-world setting of the car dealership to discover their individual universes in surprising, sincere, and sometimes strange ways.
The play touches on both nostalgia and critique — how do you navigate those potentially conflicting tones?
We’ve taken a “catch more flies with honey” approach in framing our critique of capitalism, performative patriotism, and the American dream. We’ve dressed our incisive satire in a star-spangled, glittery costume and filled it with singing, dancing, American cultural references, and a lot of humor and heart. We hope to get audiences in the door with the promise of nostalgic, Americana kitsch, but that they’ll leave mulling over their own relationship to work and patriotism.
How do you hope international audiences, particularly those at the Fringe, respond to a very American setting and subject?
For better or for worse, nearly everyone in the entire world has a relationship to America or an idea about what America is. Created by artists from the UK, France, and the US, Terry’s takes this international perspective into account. The show plays with some of the stereotypes international audiences love best, such as the “get rich or die trying,” flag-waving, gun-toting American. But its critique of far-right nationalism and the hamster-wheel hellscape of the capitalist system could easily be applied to the current climate in the UK and in the west more generally. We hope Terry’s will offer international audiences a satisfying laugh at Americans, while also promoting an introspective look at the way the show’s themes resonate in their own countries.