Narrating the history of Enron from the 1990s through to its bankruptcy, the play charts the rise and fall of the organisation that Fortune Magazine described as “America’s Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years. The first half tracks the high octane, risk taking, macho culture that ran through the corporation. As CEO Jeffrey Skilling pioneered fraudulent ‘mark to market’ accounting techniques in which anticipated future profits were tabulated as if real in the present. The second half is much darker, as the need to maintain a high stock price at all costs becomes more and more desperate, and the house of cards eventually comes tumbling down.

The singing, dancing, acting and humour are all excellently delivered throughout, and the the show’s creator should be given great credit for the intelligent use of props and stage to explain mind-boggling financial practices. The absurdity of finance capitalism is brilliantly depicted, leaving you torn between tears and laughter as obsessive traders create billions of dollars of ‘value’ through pure speculation and nothing more.

As Wednesday’s spending review reveals how we’re expected to pick up the bill from the bigger banking bail out of 2008-09, the play lucidly explains the wider tragedy of how Enron’s model has damned us all. A fantastic production, ‘Enron’ helps us to understand our current political situation in an intelligent, entertaining and humorous way.

Robbie Gillett