Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a satirist, or a footballer, miss an open goal. Given the rich potential offered by tax havens and the inequality gap, you would have thought no one could fail to hit the target. But that is to reckon without a show, created by Caroline Horton “through a devising process”, that is so toothless and self-delighting that it leaves its object of ridicule serenely untouched.
I could imagine many possible approaches to the subject of tax havens. A documentary one could be devastating, since an estimated $18.5tn dollars is siphoned out of the world economy by these island retreats. You could also create a gripping drama out of an individual seeking to expose the spider’s web of corruption surrounding the tax-dodgers.
But Horton has opted for a grotesque, physical style apparently popular in France and known as bouffon. You could trace it back to Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, premiered in 1896, in its anarchic vulgarity, but the problem is that it seems totally the wrong style with which to attack modern financial malpractice.
It would be pointless to try and summarise Horton’s flailing plot. It seemingly concerns a tax haven that floats in the sky like an island paradise. It is exempt from the rules of what is called the “Shitworld” and is ruled by a female god who elevates an earthly Adam and Eve to be its prime occupants. But the attack on the privileged detachment of tax havens gets muddled with a send-up of creation-myths, and the show reveals a coprophilia that is more worth the attention of an analyst than a critic.
The tragedy is that I’m sure Horton, her fellow actors and the director, Omar Elerian, set out with the best of intentions to expose the damage done to the global economy by tax havens and the creation of a parasitical, non-paying elite. But what we actually get are rehearsal-room games that don’t add up to a play and that do nothing to heighten our awareness of the subject.
• Until 21 February. Box office: 020-8743 5050. Venue: Bush theatre, London.
