Infinite Riches

In creating her comedic, cautionary tale inspired by a combination of classic Faust and our contemporary economic woes, writer Catherine Harvey is too easy on the comedy and too blatant on the caution to leave us with anything to chew on. Though delivered through a couple of  interesting characters (and a couple of really boring ones) Infinite Riches sadly lacks the original perception needed to make this play linger.

She begins with the ill-fitting story of Icarus whose tale of failed ambition doesn't match the passiveness of her protagonist everyman Phil. He is heavily in debt, clueless about how to cheer up his wife and easily seduced by the excitable, swaggering Mephistopheles who arrives via Zazie Smuts as the young, manipulative hustler Julie. Smuts is the life of this show and the audience, like Phil, are taken in by her energy and rhythm which the rest of this production - and Phil's life - sadly lacks.

Julie and her entertainingly foul-mouthed Nan help Phil consolidate his debts in this age of overwhelming financial confusion and the gap between what we see and what we get with Nan and Julie is fascinating. Here Harvey makes us question the ubiquity of evil and the face of the devil. But the poor pacing of this predictable, drawn out plot coupled with some underdeveloped characters means her story doesn't tackle human nature as skilfully as it could.

Naima Khan