SOURCE: "A Piece of Self-indulgence," in The Spectator Vol. 258, No. 8283, 11 April 1987, p. 47.

In this evaluation of a Royal Court performance, Edwards detects some "predictable moralising" in Serious Money, but finds that the production was "driven by a convincing, crude energy. "

Caryl Churchill's new comedy is in the best Royal Court tradition of vital, anti-establishment work. It is a tendentious, up-to-the-minute satire about corruption and insider dealing in the City. By way of historical colour, and to show that City speculators have been seen as ever thus, the evening opens with an extract from Shadwell's The Stockjobbers. Four characters anxiously plan a deal involving patents for mousetraps, but the objective, naturally enough, is to 'turn a penny'. We then switch to a frenetic trading floor in the City, post Big Bang, complete with blinking screens, banks of telephones and, set into the back of the stage, a large wine...