Money makes the world go round, and at break-neck speed at that.
Queenie stands in the middle of a room at Bush Theatre surrounded by her team, which today includes me. Played with just the right amount of maniacal glee by Lucy Ellinson, Queenie is a former hedge fund manager turned performance artist who's worked her experience reading the market and advising investors into a two hour-gameshow. Pitting us against each other, she demonstrates quite a lot about humans as individuals and our perception of value. The opposing team, who are getting a similar pep talk in a different room, are led by Casino (Brian Ferguson) who has an almost identical professional history to Queenie. They're in this together or so it seems.
As they pump us up before we enter the auditorium where we sit opposite each other performing tasks and betting on buckets of £1 coins (there are 10,000 real ones on stage and they make a disappointingly small pile), Queenie and Casino are activating our desire to win. It's interesting to see who gets worked up and who doesn't, who feels the need to compete and succeed and who's just happy to watch. Their main point throughout this show is that it's our collective belief in the value of money that drives the market as we know it today. They do this with a gung-ho blatancy that involves getting us to blow and burst bubbles (literally) as well as keeping bubbles afloat without destroying them.
Between these tasks and bets, winning and losing, we hear their intertwining stories in chapters, all set prior to the 2008 market crash. The tales of children, parents, happiness and desolation, humanises the pair who could easily come across as one-track characters with the aim to succeed at any cost. But what comes across strongest is their mentality, the one they're trying to lure their audience into: winning is all that matters. For us it lasts a couple of hours, for them it's a way of life and they make me wonder how much choice they feel they have over that. Is the option of earning an average salary ever even considered?
Their stories outside of this gameshow don't add to the picture of the world they're trying to give. Yes, our belief in money is what gives it real value, and although Money: The Gameshow is a really fun way to re-learn this point and teach us some key terms, it's not new. Instead, it makes me want to know more about the real power players. If Queenie and Casino have a pseudo power and so do their bosses is there anyone who isn't gambling? Who can escape unharmed from the game that the rest of us, including bankers, have to play? It's touched on towards the end when there's some dreamy talk of state ministers flying off into the sunset but it's not a sharp look at the people who set the rules. Or is that us?
A fun, perfectly interactive show which could trim about half an hour off its running time and tackle much more than it does here. That said, I have finally learnt what a sub-prime is.
Money: The Gameshow runs at Bush Theatre until 2nd March.
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