ENRON.

Written by Lucy Prebble.

Directed by Rupert Goold.

Headlong Theatre at the Noel Coward Theatre which I believe is the third theatre the production has visited since it opened.

It was very good.

I went to see the film documentary about it a couple of years back. And slept through big large chunks of it.

To my utter mortification, I slept through slim slivers of the stage show on Saturday. But only I think because of heat and weariness (I made it through to the second act without shutting my eyes once – aside from a blink – give me a break…). And don’t in the lord’s fine name tell my aunt that I napped. I imagined that I hid it really well. Although to be fair, leaning forward, hand on chin on knee, eyes wilting, probably isn’t the most discretest nap I’ll ever have.

Anyway, what Lucy and Rupert accomplished brilliantly was taking a story which is both a little dry and a lot complicated and turning it into something incredibly user-friendly. They were interested (so the programme notes claim anyway) in not just the ramifications of the company collapse for the individuals involved but the wider effects on our society. You must, they suggest, question the sense of a certain form of trading when this has happened once already. And then of course the banks slithered. Vindication.

It was slick (in a good, not a dismissive way), polished, colourful, energetic, fast-paced, thought-provoking (well you know, when I wasn’t sleeping). The cast were great. A couple of half famous people were in it. But half famous and not were all spot on. The staging was brilliant. Clever clever clever. The script was witty. Pointed. Direction was considered and imaginative.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I might be quite so glowing out of sleepy guilt. But who cares? It was a cracker of a show.

And is it political theatre for the twenty-first century? Maybe so.