Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

Flemish theatre company Ontroerend Goed and I have nine years history. We’ve been speed dating (my ‘date’ writing to me weeks later) and in therapy. They’ve observed, interviewed and humiliated me, and gave me a recording of it on DVD. They staged a teenage riot in a cube and hectored me on sexism and misogyny. Somehow I missed this one at the Edinburgh Fringe last year, so the eve of this year’s visit to Edinburgh, I’m participating in a gambling game. You have to admit they are inventive and original, and you can’t say I don’t match it by being adventurous!

The stage and seats have been removed from the Almeida Theatre, which now has ten gaming tables in a wide circle, with an indicator board and administrators at the centre. You are sent to a table and when it’s full you’re told you are a country and each of you a bank within it. Based on the amount of real cash you deposit, you are given funds to invest and the initial period is fairly straightforward investments in sectors of the economy, your returns determined by the roll of your dice. You hand back a fifth of your returns in tax.

As the game progresses, new ways to invest emerge, higher risks and higher returns. Countries are rated based on performance. They can issue bonds which are soon traded internationally. Shorting and bank mergers become possible, as does borrowing. Then some countries get into trouble and it really hots up.

It’s execution is extremely slick, with the actors running each table and as administrators having to make very quick calculations and communicate results speedily in order to run the simulation. It’s fiendishly clever, very sociable, educational, entertaining, but ultimately scary, as you realise what a complex and precarious financial world we are all now compulsory participants of.

Even by this inventive company’s standards, this is great interactive theatre. Of course, I was the least successful investor at my table / in my country, but I did triple my money, though the IOU I took home with my original deposit won’t buy any more theatre tickets.