The first Platform 18 winner is Clare Duffy with her piece Money…The Game Show. Read more …
The show features Brian Ferguson (Black Watch) and Pauline Lockhart as two former bank employees who ran hedge funds and are now performers. It’s very timely indeed with the Government’s recent austerity measures, the banking crisis and the impact of the international recession. The Platform 18 award is £6,000. So Clare is making a show about what money is worth – with the money she won. With the actual money she won – in pound coins. Members of the audience will participate in games which will look at the element of risk-taking and silliness in moving and investing money.
A quirky, intelligent, left- field, look at our attitudes towards money that manages to be both fun and frightening at the same time. And unlike some of the examples on show, money well spent.
Once again, the writing glitters with an unexpected brilliance. There are flashes of real drama and poetry in the interaction between the characters; and the final message, when it comes, is as serious as it is damning, and alarming.
A production with big ideas but few emotional dividends.
Certainly, this is a work that invites further refinement. But it has the overwhelming virtue of being politically engaged, intelligently researched and never evangelical.
Theatre writer and performer Clare Duffy's new show about money
The Arches, Glasgow from Tuesday April 5, 2011, until Saturday April 9, 2011. More info: www.thearches.co.uk
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Thursday April 14, 2011, until Sunday April 17, 2011. More info: www.traverse.co.uk
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