Kelly’s new work explores the mad, bad and sad world that dealing with debt plunges a young London couple into. Their cautionary tale is told in reverse so we learn first of the bride’s suicide and work back towards the time when she is high on love and planning to marry the man of her dreams. But any intrigue into the plight of the credit generation wanes the further back the narrative stretches.

The first scene features a man emailing a woman, and revealing in these electronic epistles the disturbing details of his wife’s suicide – and how he helped her on her way. It’s a strong opening and this production would have been excellent if the dark despair and filthy underbelly of near bankruptcy it exposes had been ploughed with greater determination.

John Kirk plays David, the husband, whose rectitude and patience crack as his debt riddled wife Jess drags them both into the red. Wracked with the stress she has a mental breakdown while he is forced to give up his teaching job, grovel to a successful ex before eventually turning to the sex industry to make ends meet.

There are however jokes along the way and they come in the shape of Jess’s parents Joanna Bacon, as her mum and Paul Moriarty, as her father, provide a wry injection of black humour when they describe their mission to desecrate the Acropolis- style mausoleum erected next to their daughter’s humble plot.

However with Kellie Bright’s Jess you never get the sense that she is truly consumed by the mental anguish of debt repayments. It’s a performance of hand- wringing, crumpled brows and wild gesticulations, which is far from convincing. Her final scene in particular lost me in a fug of esoteric concepts and scientific theory, which dulled the twinges of sadness I felt on seeing her in better days, before debt crept up on her.

Besides the awesome set and props, (designed by Philip Costello and Steve Bunn, and looking like a cross between a game show set and mortuary, with huge drawers that could be pulled open) the other major highlight in this production is Claudie Blakely. She takes on two roles: Val, David’s commercially savvy ex, and then Debbie, a naïve ingénue, about to turn to grubby movies to earn a living. As both characters she has a presence and attitude that make these portrayals detailed and compelling.

Love and Money is without doubt a timely production, as most of us wake each morning with some kind of debt over our head, but its insights are neither gripping or altogether shocking. So if you are an in debt theatregoer, save your cash and put it towards your visa bill unless you’re a set design student, then sell your kidney to get a seat.

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