Review: It’s The Economy Stupid!, Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘Part lecture, part anecdotal lament on the state of the UK economy over the last 30 years’

Named after a phrase coined in 1992 by Jim Carville, a strategist during Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign, It’s The Economy Stupid! is a lecture-cum-anecdotal hour lament about the economy of 30 years ago, to today.

It comes to Tobacco Factory Theatres fresh off the back of a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Using a simple set made from cardboard boxes and some clever lighting, Joe Sellman-Leava and Dylan Howells ruminate on the economy as an election-winning tool, its complexities, and the subtle and unsubtle ways it affects us all.

Using a mix of presidential and prime ministerial impressions, cardboard props, magic tricks and monologues, the duo cover right-to-buy, Thatcherism, prefab housing, the 1990s recession, and other aspects of the economic landscape of the last 30 years. Sellman-Leava intertwines the facts with the story of his own parents’ financial struggles during his childhood.

Joe Sellman-Leava and Dylan Howells in It’s The Economy Stupid!

He repeatedly reminds us that his parents were greengrocers, in a way reminiscent of Keir Starmer’s “toolmaker” trope, or dare I say another child of a greengrocer, Mrs Thatcher herself. At one point he lies on the floor in despair, in a gesture that feels more self-pitying than a collective comment on the state of things.

Telling stories of bailiffs, bankruptcy and poverty, Sellman-Leava’s delivery feels like it’s demanding unique sympathy for a situation that affected millions. Blaming prime ministers of the past, and recalling recent financial struggles that left him unwell and stuck with a mortgage on a mouldy flat, it’s fortunate that Sellman-Leava hasn’t been forced from the path of a career in the arts.

While Howells’ occasional inputs are light relief from the monologues- “Joe tends to go off on one… so I’m like a regulator” – his real purpose in the narrative and production is unclear.

A bit of audience participation here, a magic trick there, it feels disjointed, almost as though Sellman-Leava would like this to be a one-man-show, but is aware that that would solidify this production’s status as a lecture in economics.

The sentiment is good, and what resonates most is the stark absence of economic education within Britain, leaving generation after generation woefully unprepared to deal with a system controlled by people that ultimately want them to fail.

However, important points are rushed, and lines fumbled more than once. It feels a little unrehearsed, which is surprising after a successful run at the Fringe, leading to the assumption that perhaps tweaks have been made since August, and they’re not quite ready yet.

It’s The Economy Stupid! is at Tobacco Factory Theatres on September 17-18 at 7.30pm. For ticket availability, visit www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com.

All photos: Tobacco Factory Theatres

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