Other People’s Money review – good capitalism goes to war with greed

Southwark Playhouse, London
Unfettered excess and predatory humour combine in a timely reflection on big business

Jerry Sterner's play about Wall Street avarice first opened off-Broadway two years after the stock market crash of 1987 and soon became a film starring Gregory Peck and Danny DeVito. Revived in our age of economic collapse and austerity, it is a timely rumination on the amorality of unfettered free-market capitalism.

The plot pits Andrew Jorgenson, the patriarch of a family-run firm on Rhode Island, against Larry the Liquidator, a corporate raider from New York who seeks to make a profit from other people's failing assets. "There's an important story that needs to be told," says William (Mark Rose), an employee at Jorgenson's wire and cable firm, who is also our narrator. "It's about loyalty, friendship, tradition and of course, money. Lots of money."

At Southwark Playhouse, London, until 11 May.