The finance sector just before the Global Financial Crisis sets up a promising premise. Inspired by the fate of French trader Jérôme Kerviel, the Hurrah Hurrah theatre company has staked out fertile soil for its black comedy, Trade.

Created by Alison Bennett, Dymphna Carew, Naomi Livingstone, Alison Windsor and Cheyne Finn, Trade dips into the smorgasbord of comic possibilities. There is the sickly sweet tone taken with stakeholders, the euphemistic language around “what we do at Delta One”, the snide bitchiness between colleagues and the casual exploitation of third-world economies.

In accordance with an actor-led ethos of theatremaking, this play has been built from a series of improvisation sessions and without a director. The result is somewhat schematic, resembling a workshop of ideas. The top layer of the performance is interpretative movement and it can feel a bit extraneous at times. The play itself is a masochistic patchwork of fight scenes, sing-song strategising and theatrical cocaine-snorting.

As the characters move self-importantly between open-plan offices and boardrooms, disaster strikes. The unfolding action is a panicked string of passing the buck and half-baked plans to recuperate the company.

Trade is an admiral exercise in endurance and a playful exploration of some promising themes. However, it is too disjointed and fails to spark any real humour – you can only coast so far on absurdity. While there is some great choreography, physical gags are stretched too far and the characters are irredeemable megalomaniacs. According to Hurrah Hurrah, the plan is to redevelop the work with the assistance of a writer and a dramaturge in 2016. This seems appropriate, given Trade feels for now like the skeleton of something more substantial.

2/5 stars

Trade played at the Old 505 Theatre until Sunday May 17.

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