Review: The Price of Everything **

The language of that play was snappy, but the unlikely plot twist did make me wonder whether I was watching the work of a writer with more style than substance. Sadly, The Price of Everything follows in much the same vein. Clearly Evans is accomplished, but there is so much which misfires here it's hard to find anything to like. How Evans expects her audience to feel empathy with a family who are stinking rich and have a daughter who says things to her mother like, "Excuse me while I go feed my ponies", is difficult to comprehend.

The way the daughter speaks to her mother (in a manner which would have seen most kids knocked into next week), the fact the mother allows it and the father does little to stop it are just some of the reasons this play doesn't work. Evans was inspired to write the script by news stories of people in debt who take an extreme way out.

Andrew Dunn plays Eddie Carver, a once successful businessman with debts up to his eyeballs and an expensive family and house. The acting is adequate, but this story of a man having a breakdown is neither deep enough, nor believable enough. It feels like an episode in a soap opera and lacks the scale of a theatre piece. Evans is a talented writer, but there is little of that on show here.

Stephen Joseph Theatre