Would you give £240 to: the first homeless person you saw; a mass pizza delivery for hospital night staff; a drag queen-led fitness startup; or a hard-up aspiring actor who needs cash for her last college term? Or just spend it on a fancy meal?
These are some of the questions being played out in a new show best described as part theatre, part game, part moral debate. But it is not quite that. And it is different every time.
“It is almost impossible to define what it is,” said Kate Pakenham, a producer of The Money being staged in the atmospheric, octagonal debating chamber at the County Hall in London. “As soon as you try to define it, it slips through your fingers. For me it holds up a mirror, it feels like ‘a state of the nation’ piece of work.”
The show brings together complete strangers to talk directly, no Zoom, for an hour. “Given we have been isolated from each other for so long, that feels pretty profound and revolutionary,” she said.
The concept is that people pay £20 to be players in a group debating how to spend a pot of money. Watching on are “silent witnesses”, the audience, who have paid £30 to hear the debate.
The players have an hour to reach a conclusion. It comes with rules including that it cannot be split, it has to go to a named person, it cannot be illegal, and it cannot go to charity. “It was too easy for groups to come to that in the last seconds,” said Seth Honnor, the creator of The Money. “That doesn’t mean people can’t be charitable.”
If a decision is not reached, the money is rolled over.
In the opening week the pot of money has gone to someone who needed a new washing machine, towards the honeymoon of a couple who married in a zoo, and to a 19-year-old drama student who needed money for transport to college for her last term.
Honnor had the idea nearly a decade ago. It began life in Exeter and has since been staged all over the world including Lagos city hall, Sydney Opera House and the UK houses of parliament.
It is a show that resonates as much today as it did at the start, says Honnor. “At its heart it is about trying to find some shared value and I don’t think that gets old.”
The timing of its return raises the question: has the past year changed people’s attitude to money and how best to spend it?
“That’s impossible to know because each group of people is different, and this is not a social experiment,” Honnor said. “I think our relationship to money runs much deeper than a year like this can change. Our relationship to money is extraordinarily complex and I think that remains the case.”
He has noticed “an emotional intensity in this first week” that is striking but not surprising “given the collective experience of the last year”.
The show is an unexpectedly gripping and emotional experience but Honnor knows that some people will not like what they are seeing. That’s why witnesses can buy in to the game and become players. “The invitation is explicitly there to change what is going on, to give it the energy that you want it to have,” he said.
On the evening the Guardian was there, many witnesses, exasperated at the faffing around of the players, did just that. After it was agreed the money could go to the student, a drama teacher joined to cast doubt on the story. Some of the things said did not ring true.
It was a devastating intervention but it failed. The money went to the student. But did she really need a pot that was initially £240 and grew into £370?
“If it’s not true, you are a very good actor,” she was told. She smiled, thanked them and left with the money.
The Money is at County Hall in London until 18 July.
