Secrets of the Showroom (RTÉ, Monday, 9.35pm) could easily have been a cruise down misery boulevard. Even before the global supply-chain crisis, Brexit had thrown a wrench into Ireland’s used-car market. Combined, they have sent prices soaring. And besides, aren’t automobiles a metaphor for fuel-injected hypercapitalism and industrialised plunder of the environment? Why not do something about cargo bikes and goat farming instead?
All of those potential potholes are swerved around in a film that unspools like a mix of The Office, Top Gear and David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.
The David Brent component arrives courtesy of Carmaxx, a dealership in Fermoy, where the guy from marketing wants staff to participate in an Avengers-themed Halloween video. The response to Dennis’s idea is not one of overwhelming enthusiasm. “I’m 20-odd years selling cars,” says the manager. “I’m going to look like a buffoon.”
Unperturbed, Dennis later outlines his grand vision of one of the salesmen, Mark, running through Fermoy dressed as Forrest Gump. “There’s only one Forrest Gump here, sunshine,” is the pithy response from Eoin, the sales manager.
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The Top Gear element comes via Ashford Motors, in Co Wicklow, where Nadia, the manager, raises the profile of the company – and its stable of Lamborghinis – with flirtatious TikTok videos inspired by classic movies. Perhaps she and Dennis from marketing should collaborate. It could be the Irish used-car equivalent of Daniel Day-Lewis working with Paul Thomas Anderson.
The more hustling side of the business is on display at Kylemore Cars in Dublin, where the dealer who sells the most vehicles will win a holiday to Dubai. It sounds cut-throat, yet one of them, Sinéad, says she prefers to work on a commission, as it gives her a sense of achievement and something to strive towards.
The bleak reality of the post-Brexit second-hand car market is largely unexplored. The one truly negative note is sounded by a Sligo dealer, Kevin Egan. “You’re wondering whether you’ll be playing five-a-side or selling some cars,” he laments, adding that, if there is an abundance of potential buyers, “we just don’t have the cars to supply them.”
That sounds like the starting point for a harder-hitting documentary. But Secrets of the Showroom is determined to be quirky and disposable – and by those criteria it burns rubber with aplomb.
