The Just Price of Flowers

The Just Price of Flowers: Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Stan's Cafe

A play about the 2008 financial collapse, set in 17th Century Netherlands, inspired by Rembrandt, featuring origami and paying homage to the great theatre maker Bertolt Brecht.

Tulips were imported into Europe in the early 17th Century at a time when merchants were generating wealth by through trade. Collecting exotic items was a fashion. A passion developed for tulips, their price rose and as the price rose the possibility of making profit through speculative buying of Tulips arose. For a brief time certain tulip bulbs were sold for prices equivalent to those of a house, or three years of a craftsman's wage. In 1637 this financial bubble burst.

Using Tulipmania as its inspiration, The Just Price of Flowers plots the growing complexity and spiralling profits of contemporary high finance to the point of the most recent financial meltdown in 2008.

This is an austerity production, made fast and cheap. Its aesthetic is drawn from Rembrandt and theatrical form inspired by Bertolt Brecht.