TThe title was coined by a strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign in the midst of the recession, and its use in this show is decidedly ironic. Blaming the recession as the cause of a broken economy is like blaming the weather for the climate catastrophe, according to writer and cast member Joe Sellman-Leava.

This becomes evident over the course of this dramatized lecture he gives with Dylan Howells, as they blend macroeconomics with the micro effects on Sellman-Leava’s early family life. Born around the time of the presidential campaign statement, he tells us how his store-owning parents lost their business and endured the ignominy of bankruptcy, bailiffs and eviction. Alongside this, he describes his fascination with money and math as a young boy: “Math was logical, money was magic,” he says.

Howells sits on the sidelines or rearranges the giant cardboard boxes, but he drops wry remarks and prevents Sellman-Leava from drifting into a soapbox polemic (“Joe has a tendency to freak out in a situation… so I’m kind of a regulator”).

Co-developed and co-directed with Katharina Reinthaller, the show uses the metaphor of a game of Monopoly to illustrate ethical points around financial dealings, but only half succeeds. However, Sellman-Leava and Howells are an effective duo, with a prickly friendliness between them – the former conveying a condensed version of the modern history of British business through his personal story, while Howell acts as his foil, occasionally employing magic tricks that are a delight to watch.

It’s about explaining to ordinary people how the economy works, from Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” to John Maynard Keynes, Thatcher’s right-to-buy program, privatization, low taxes for the rich, the machinations of modern banking and the current housing and energy crises.

It is a big task in an hour, and you cannot always get more than a cursory line to each sentence or get to the more complex details but both actors bring charisma and intelligence. You want that lesson to continue and dig deeper so it has a stronger impact.