The Standard of Living review – Rory Kinnear has bags of charm as Bloomsbury economist Keynes
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
James Graham’s high-wire writing brings economic theory to life and connects it with art and fulfilment in this polished, ravishingly staged story of John Maynard Keynes
Not everyone will know that the Bloomsbury group had a jobbing economist among them. One with superstar status and a firm belief in capitalism. John Maynard Keynes (Rory Kinnear) may not have cut a very bohemian picture in his three-piece suit but the foremost thinker of economic policy in 20th century Britain was also a card-carrying art lover, avant-gardist and bisexual who had affairs with Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant, hanging out with the gang at their nerve-centre in Charleston.
He played with equal amounts of old-school reserve, and charm, by Kinnear, as state-of-the-nation writer, James Graham, audaciously brings economic theory to the West End. The high-wire act of the subject matter is leavened by Graham’s remarkable facility to balance British social history and complex political ideas with speed, sparkle and a humorous lightness of touch.
