Money ... The Game Show

There are many great ideas in this production by Clare Duffy, one of two winners of this year's Platform 18 Award from The Arches.

Two former hedge fund managers become performance artists as a way of educating their audience about the world of finance? Great. Using interactive games to better explain how financial decisions are made? Very funny and surprisingly illuminating. Using a plot about two people who know the banking world is about to collapse and decide to profit from the upcoming disaster rather than averting it? Brilliant.

The production also contains the greatest visual seen in recent productions: a pile of real coins totalling £6,000. As the cast (and several invited audience members) pick, dig and sift through the pile, the coins become meaningless, like worthless grains of sand.

That’s the irony. The play’s greatest flaw is that it artistically hedges all of its concepts rather than wisely investing in one or two, resulting in a production with big ideas but few emotional dividends.

There is still much to admire. Duffy’s two cast members, Brian Ferguson and Pauline Lockhart, are a bundle of energy, and both have no problem jumping between game-playing shenanigans and dramatic scenes. The script, when it has time to dramatically breathe, is full of crisp and insightful moments.

If the production shows anything, it is that writer and director Duffy is a talent to watch. She does many wonderful things and has so many solid ideas that they literally burst out of the production. It’s worth seeing, even if it feels she hasn’t harnessed the full potential of her rather great idea.

NB Traverse Theatre performances are of a double bill with Pause with a Smile.